TRENTON – A review of municipal police department websites across New Jersey found that few met requirements and best practices intended to encourage public reporting of police misconduct, according to a report released today by the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC).

OSC’s review of 100 randomly selected municipal police departments’ websites found that 80 did not meet a basic mandate from the Attorney General to make publicly available a standardized internal affairs report form in 11 languages online. In fact, 31 departments did not have any complaint form available online, according to the review by the Police Accountability Project, part of OSC.

Just five of the 100 departments OSC surveyed – Hoboken, Neptune City, Oceanport, Monroe Township, and Spring Lake – fulfilled the key requirements and best practices laid out in the Attorney General’s Internal Affairs Policies and Procedures (IAPP) and corresponding Law Enforcement Directives, which govern the police disciplinary process.  

“The law requires police departments to make it easy to report police misconduct, not put up barriers,” said Kevin Walsh, Acting State Comptroller. “The website is, in effect, the front door. The public needs to be assured that the door is open to them if they want to file a complaint.”

As part of an effort to strengthen public trust in police, the Attorney General made significant updates to the IAPP in 2019, issuing new requirements that included requiring law enforcement to make publicly available a standardized complaint form in multiple languages and an information sheet describing the internal affairs process and what role the complainant can expect to play. The Attorney General also barred police from warning complainants about the legal consequences of false reporting, which can discourage members of the public from filing a legitimate complaint.

Due to the pandemic, the law enforcement community was given a grace period until August 2020 to implement these changes. Then, in August 2020 to aid the law enforcement community in implementing the mandates, the Attorney General made both the mandatory standardized internal affairs report form and the information sheet available on its website in 11 required languages.

Providing even a link to the Attorney General’s standardized complaint form in 11 languages was considered by OSC to be compliance, yet most municipal police departments (80%) surveyed by OSC did not even do that.

Other violations of the IAPP found include:

• Thirty-two police departments had improper warnings about the legal consequences of false reporting. The warnings ranged from, “it is unlawful to provide information in this matter which you do not believe to be true” to requiring complainants to acknowledge they could be criminally prosecuted for false reporting.
• Eight departments improperly required a sworn statement online to initiate a complaint.
• Twenty-seven departments used non-standardized report forms that failed to notify the complainant that personal identifying information is optional. And 26 of them also asked for more detailed information, such as social security numbers. The IAPP makes clear that complaints must be accepted from anyone – undocumented persons included.

OSC sent its findings to police departments that were part of the review.  More than 50 responded almost immediately, informing OSC they had updated or were in the process of updating their websites to come into compliance. “Given that most police departments we surveyed were non-compliant, we urge every police department in New Jersey to proactively assess their compliance with the IAPP,” said Walsh.

Read the report. 

To report government fraud, waste, mismanagement or corruption, file a complaint with OSC or call 1-855-OSC-TIPS.