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By any standard, the Paterson, New Jersey, police department is troublesome.
Since 2019, its Officers involved in shooting of fouraccording to New Jersey Spotlight News. group of officials recognized by federal court Form a squad of gangsters to rob and attack people in the city.another official admitted Selling drugs out of a police car while wearing uniform while on duty.
One of the four killings was the March shooting of Najee Seabrooks, a black violent intervention worker, who emerged from a bathroom with a knife after an hours-long standoff with police in riot gear.Against this backdrop, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin Start taking over the Paterson Police Department in a few weeks. Unlike other recent efforts by conservative lawmakers to rein in local crime-related police departments, Democrat Platkin argued his takeover was an effort to curb civil rights violations.
Although unprecedented, The New York Times reported that “Platkin’s decision in Paterson was more moderate than revolutionary”: Retrain officials, hire new leaders, and hold community meetings.
While details vary from place to place, modest variations are largely visible as we pass by Three years since the murder of George Floyd and protests calling for a rethink of national law enforcement in the summer of 2020.
state Hundreds of Reform Bills PassedAvailable in multiple cities Alternative Responder Procedures for Mental Health Calls Historically, this would have been handled by the police alone.But the overall footprint and Police funding remains largely unchanged. In addition, Congress has Failure to pass sweeping police reformsThe content of the Biden administration’s public security executive order is long overdue.
Some in Paterson are skeptical of a state takeover: “The attorney general is law enforcement. Law enforcement killed our brothers,” Seabrooks friend Quan Hargrove told The New York Times . “How do you repair that trust? It’s a tall order.” The local Black Lives Matter group is seeking an independent federal monitor for the police department, convinced the problems there require out-of-state intervention.
New Jersey is currently the only state with a potential acquisition like Paterson’s.State Law grant unique control Leave local policing to the Attorney General. In 2020, The then Attorney General Gurbir Grewal implemented a wide range of reforms Questions about police use of force may require action by state legislatures or executive orders from governors in other states.
A new requirement of state reform is to publish annually the penalties imposed on disciplinary officers for misconduct.The 2022 report released last month showed that Discipline of officers is wildly inconsistent face, even for similar behavior. It also showed that black officers face harsher sanctions than white officers.
A less common police accountability tactic in New Jersey is the civilian oversight board. While they’ve been used in other states for decades, New Jersey didn’t use them in Newark until 2015, According to the New Jersey Monitor, the state Supreme Court cut the powers of local boards in 2020. As we discussed in our closing arguments earlier this year, these civic committees, which vary widely in structure and powers, have grown in popularity in recent years and are often formed in or around high-profile cases of police brutality. Later reforms were carried out.
in Ohio, each of state six biggest Cities have some sort of civilian review board, and Akron’s new board is Ideastream reported it was “up and running” as of May 30Voters overwhelmingly approved the commission after the police killing of Jayland Walker in 2022. last week, People march to protest grand jury decision Do not bring charges against the police in this situation. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the city’s police oversight board was thrown into disarray after three members resigned, citing “toxic dysfunction.”
Another popular police reform — designed to address racial disparities in policing outcomes — is Increase racial diversity in the police force. A recent sample of more than 100 sectors found that, in the vast majority of sectors, People of color are underrepresented by 10 percentiles or more, compared to their proportion in the local population. Many researchers and activists have long been skeptical of the idea that police diversity, by itself, improves outcomes. The January 2023 killing of Tire Nichols by five black Memphis police officers, who were later arrested and charged with murder, reignited the debate.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison referred to Nichols’ case in an interview with Politico published Wednesday, saying he believes the speed at which officers are charged with crimes Is a testament to the changes after Floyd’s deathEllison, who successfully prosecuted Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of Floyd, said his own re-election last year proved that prosecutors can hold police officers accountable and still win elections.
“If you really want to make a meaningful effort on the issue of police brutality and police misconduct, you have to start by prosecuting crimes,” Ellison told Politico.