State Police failed to address racial profiling

TAYLOR JUNG, SOCIAL JUSTICE WRITER | MAY 23, 2024 |

Report prompts calls for action, as police accountability measures remain stalled in the Legislature

The New Jersey State Police’s history of racial profiling, a decades-long injustice that’s been the focus of lawsuits, federal monitoring and legislative reviews is not over, a new state watchdog report says, echoing the recent findings made by several others.

The State Police failed to consider implicit bias as a cause for racial disparities in motor vehicle stops, the state comptroller’s office now says, the same practice officials acknowledged 25 years ago after troopers shot at Black and Hispanic men in a van following a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.

The state attorney general’s office also did not sufficiently oversee the State Police, including a special management review team set up after the U.S. Justice Department intervened to end racial profiling by state troopers.

Criminal justice experts were not surprised by Tuesday’s report and said they are concerned the findings are a statewide law-enforcement issue. Several key police reform measures stalled in the Legislature should move forward, they said. And they want to see the State Police and the attorney general make concrete, public steps to correct what this report and other recent reviews have found.

“New Jersey State Police is the premier law enforcement agency in New Jersey. And if it’s shirking its responsibilities, it sets the tone for other departments to do the same,” said Yannick Wood of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

Common themes

The findings of the comptroller’s office come after two other reports, one which found that State Police trainers didn’t adequately provide racial profiling lessons and another that found Black and Hispanic drivers were more likely to undergo searches after traffic stops. Racial disparity in policing has been a decades-long issue for the State Police, who were subject to a federal lawsuit and a subsequent consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department that mandated reforms and regular public reports that lasted from 1999 to 2009.

Under a 2009 law, the state comptroller conducts annual reviews of the State Police and the attorney general’s Office of Law Enforcement Professional Standards. This year’s examination reviewed the State Police’s Risk Analysis Core Group, which was created when the federal consent decree ended to review motor vehicle stops by troopers and to proactively suggest improvements. It reports to a management advisory panel.

The comptroller’s office decided to do a deeper dive into the State Police risk management group and advisory panel after the state attorney general last year said Black and Hispanic drivers were more likely to be stopped by State Police. And those Black and Hispanic drivers were more likely to be searched and arrested than white drivers, as well as more likely to have police use force during encounters.

However, the report said it couldn’t “complete a comprehensive review” because the State Police and the attorney general’s office either did not provide all documents requested or withheld certain information because it was “privileged.”

‘Performative’ steps

With the information it did receive, the comptroller’s office found that State Police leaders who worked with the risk analysis group failed to recommend a “single initiative to address unexplained trends” in racial disparities in motor vehicle stops. Any “processes and policies” enacted were “largely performative,” the report said. State troopers are trained on implicit bias and cultural diversity, but the state comptroller said that wasn’t enough.

“The fact that for years the State Police was aware of data showing disparate treatment of people of color on our roads — yet took no action to combat those trends — shows that the problems run deeper than previously realized,” said acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh in a statement.

“‘Racial profiling’ are two traumatic words for many Black Americans and minorities in New Jersey.” — Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter (D-Passaic)

State Police motor vehicle stop-data is publicly available, “so the public knows that it’s disproportionately people of color, who are pulled over, who are having these post-stop interactions. But it’s concerning that the State Police is not looking at that same data and observing a problem,” said Wood, of the Institute for Social Justice.

“And they need to acknowledge that a problem exists. The fact that they were in a consent decree should have alerted them,” he added.

In its response to the comptroller’s report, the attorney general’s office said that it “raised implicit bias as a possible explanation” for trends in police motor vehicle stops. The state comptroller’s office, however, said it did not find any discussion of it in five years of meeting minutes for the management advisory panel. There were also “significant breakdowns” in the attorney general’s oversight of the State Police, the report read.

According to the report, the analysis found one case where the attorney general’s oversight office “asked the same question about a disparity across racial and ethnic groups that appeared in the data with no substantive response” from the State Police. It finally stopped asking the question,” the report said.

‘Inexcusable’

Attorney General Matt Platkin said in a statement to NJ Spotlight News that he has looked at the comptroller’s report and found the findings “inexcusable,” but noted that they were the “same findings” his office was addressing. He said he appointed a new director of the Office of Law Enforcement Professional Standards, which oversees the State Police, with a “proven track record in enhancing police accountability.”

‘We want this to be a moment in which it actually leads to some type of statewide change.’ — Joe Johnson, ACLU-NJ

Platkin has introduced several measures over the years to address police misconduct, including a rewrite of use-of-force guidelines.

“An agency’s failure to review its actions, analyze the data generated by its actions and embrace reform when issues are identified does a disservice not only to the residents it serves, but also to the many brave men and women in uniform who do perform their duties honorably and fairly — including members of the NJSP who put their lives in danger on a daily basis to protect others,” Platkin said.

In a separate statement, to NJ Spotlight News, the State Police said that it was “steadfastly committed to accountability and public trust” and has been “following the recommendations of a federal consent decree” for years.

“Despite challenges, we have exceeded mandated requirements and satisfied every request from the Office of the Attorney General. As the largest law enforcement agency in this state, we will continue serving the public and remain devoted to open dialogue and communication while ensuring our duties are carried out impartially,” said Sgt. Charles Marchan, spokesperson for the State Police.

Stalled legislation

Criminal justice experts, however, say actions are more important than words. They have been fighting for several police accountability measures for years — including a bill to create a civilian complaint review board with subpoena power to oversee reports of police misconduct — which have received pushback from law enforcement. One of the only bills to become law requires police to now hold licenses for their jobs, but advocates say that’s not enough.

More political will is needed to push reforms put forth by Legislative Black Caucus members and that change shouldn’t only happen when the worst-case scenario occurs, said Marleina Ubel of New Jersey Policy Perspective.

‘Gov. Phil Murphy’s office said in a statement that he’s read the report and signaled faith in the government leaders involved to address the identified issues.’

“To be frank, one of the only reasons that we were even able to get the [community-based violence intervention programs] off the ground was because people died,” said Ubel. “We shouldn’t have to wait for someone to lose their life to do something about it.”

Many police accountability bills that remain stalled in the Legislature have been put forth by members of the Legislative Black Caucus. Caucus Chair Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter (D-Passaic) said she will take a “deeper dive into the report with a lens towards solutions to keep our communities safe.”

“‘Racial profiling’ are two traumatic words for many Black Americans and minorities in New Jersey. The OSC report details inconsistencies and the absence of action to address how all people of color are treated in policing. In 2024, we need and must do better,” Sumter said in a statement.

What next?

Joe Johnson of ACLU New Jersey said he welcomed the report’s findings, but that he’s more interested in what corrective steps the State Police and attorney general will take.

“[ACLU New Jersey] would love to make sure that this report isn’t just a one-off moment in which people read it and realize that the police did something bad,” Johnson said, “We want this to be a moment in which it actually leads to some type of statewide change.”

As for next steps, it’s up to the state to make fixes, say advocates. The state comptroller has demanded the attorney general’s office and the State Police to come up with a plan to address its findings in the next 90 days. Gov. Phil Murphy’s office said in a statement that he’s read the report and signaled faith in the government leaders involved to address the identified issues.