Senate Law and Public Safety Committee to Hear Police Reform Bill Package

TRENTON – The Senate Law and Public Safety Committee will consider a package of bills to reduce racial bias and increase diversity among police forces. The hearing will be held in person on Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 9:30 AM in Committee Room 4, 1st Floor,

State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey.

The hearing will be open to the press and also available via live stream here.

“These are our first steps towards building trust and collaboration between police and communities of color in our state. This package of bills zeros in on a multitude of topics that will undoubtedly better equip our law enforcement officers to serve all of our citizens effectively and equitably,” said Senator Linda Greenstein (D-Middlesex/Mercer), the committee’s chair. “These bills lay the foundation for this committee to build from as we work towards our next police reform hearing.”

The committee will hear testimony on the following bills:

S.401 – Sponsored by Senator Shirley Turner and Senator Sandra B. Cunningham, the bill would require law enforcement agencies in this State to establish minority recruitment and selection programs.

S.415 – Sponsored by Senator Turner, the bill would require the Division of Parole to offer parole services to certain defendants who have served their maximum sentence. Currently, parole services are only offered to those released on parole.

S.419 – Sponsored by Senator Turner and Senator Linda Greenstein, the bill would require law enforcement agencies to provide law enforcement officers with cultural diversity training and develop a diversity action plan.

S.2578 – Sponsored by Senator Troy Singleton and Senator Shirley Turner, the bill would make the crime of providing false reports to law enforcement authorities a form of bias intimidation under certain circumstances.

S.2635 – Sponsored by Senator Nia Gill, the bill would include false incrimination and filing false police reports as a form of bias intimidation. It would also establish making false 9-1-1 calls with the purpose to intimidate or harass based on race or other protected class as a crime.

S.2638 – Sponsored by Senator Thomas Kean, Jr. and Senator Nia Gill, the bill would require the Attorney General to establish a program to collect, record, and analyze prosecutorial and criminal justice data, which includes race, ethnicity, gender, and age-related information. Annual reports of this data would be released to the public.

S.2689 – Sponsored by Senator Greenstein, the bill would require the Department of Law and Public Safety to incorporate implicit bias in cultural diversity training materials for law enforcement officers. Under the bill, cultural diversity and implicit bias training would be mandatory for all law enforcement officers.