Criminal justice reformers say neither candidate vying to become New Jersey’s next governor have offered any plans to expand police transparency. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
The two candidates vying to become New Jersey’s next governor have insisted transparency would be a guiding value in their governing, with Democrat Mikie Sherrill unveiling a “transparency agenda” earlier this month and Republican Jack Ciattarelli bragging in speeches and on social media about how transparent he is.
But criminal justice reformers fear both candidates could slash public reporting on law enforcement, making policing in New Jersey less transparent just as the federal government increasingly expands its policing authority in states and cities.
Jason Williams, a justice studies professor at Montclair State University, noted that neither candidate has offered a detailed plan to expand police transparency.
“Jack Ciattarelli has aligned closely with law enforcement groups and has even suggested narrowing public access to police internal-affairs records, a step community advocates view as moving backward,” Williams said. “Mikie Sherrill, by contrast, has rolled out a broad ‘transparency’ platform, but her proposals focus mainly on fiscal and budgetary disclosure rather than on police discipline or use-of-force records. Both positions ultimately work to uphold the status quo.”
President Donald Trump’s cuts to police transparency — including his January revocation of former President Joe Biden’s executive order mandating body cameras and a misconduct database for federal officers — should spur policymakers to strengthen transparency at the state and local levels, said Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project.
While New Jersey voters have consistently cited the economy and taxes as the primary issues that drive them to the polls, police transparency also should be top of mind for voters, Bonds said.
“Police officers, more so than most other government officials, have incredible power in our society. They can literally kill you on the street before you have a trial, before you’re charged with a crime. They have the authority to take your money without due process. They have the authority to come into your home without due process,” Bonds said. “So even if you aren’t from a community that’s regularly impacted by over-policing or police violence, it’s incredibly important that we know who is doing those things in light of how much power they have.”
Ensuring police transparency is especially important, Bonds said, as Trump has dispatched military troops and federal officers to Democrat-led cities and ordered the hiring of thousands of new officers to enforce his deportation policies.
Ciattarelli and Sherrill are both vying in November to succeed Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill has said little about where she stands on police transparency issues. (Amanda Brown for New Jersey Monitor)
Sherrill’s spokespeople declined to make her available for an interview.
Sherrill, a congresswoman since 2019, has said little publicly about police transparency. During a recent talk with a police union, a Metuchen police officer asked her to defend her yes vote on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which was aimed at racial discrimination and excessive use of force in law enforcement. Sherrill told him she opposes “any ability for people to go after individual officers,” but supports accountability in police departments.
“So I do believe if there is a systemic problem, whether it’s at the municipal, county, or state level, that there should be accountability there. And I should think — I do think that if there — I think I agree with all of you, that if there are bad police officers, if there are structural problems in police departments which make every police officer look bad, that should be addressed and police should have accountability for that,” she said.
During that talk, she also said she supports civilian review boards as long as they do not have subpoena powers.
Ciattarelli, who recently landed the New Jersey Fraternal Order of Police’s endorsement, told the New Jersey Monitor after a town hall in Pitman earlier this month that he would scale back on reporting of police use of force and require reporting only on incidents in which officers fire a gun. He would not commit to continuing to report on major discipline and the names of officers involved in fatal encounters, transparency measures that then-Attorney General Gurbir Grewal ordered in 2020.
Jack Ciattarelli said he wants to scale back reporting on when police use force. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
“I’m going to go by the way of my attorney general. I’m going to sit and talk with the attorney general about these things,” he said. “But let me say this — we are not going to demoralize these men and women in blue. They’re trained professionals. We’re going to let them do their job.”
He added: “I don’t know how much more transparency you can have when somebody’s wearing a body cam.”
On his campaign website and in social media posts, Ciattarelli has also said he would end the release of internal affairs records, opposes civilian review boards “with or without subpoena power,” would appoint a “pro-police” attorney general, and would protect qualified immunity to shield officers from liability for actions they take on the job.
Williams said New Jersey’s next governor should not weaken police transparency at a time when residents have deep concerns about police brutality and controversial police-involved fatalities.
Citizens should be alarmed at any plan to eliminate use-of-force reporting except when an officer fires a gun, Bonds said.
“That’s an arbitrary distinction. Obviously, we’re aware of so many situations of really extreme brutality that don’t involve the discharge of a firearm,” she said, pointing to George Floyd and Eric Garner. Floyd died after a Minneapolis cop kneeled on his neck for 9 minutes, while Garner died after a New York City cop put him in an illegal chokehold.
Law enforcement agencies should, at a minimum, publicly release officer misconduct records, substantiated and unsubstantiated civilian complaints, departmental policies, and footage captured by body-worn cameras and dashboard cameras, Bonds said.
Keeping those things secret hurts both the public and the police, she added.
“It hurts the public by depriving them of information, by leaving them in the dark about what happened to people they care about. It takes away information they need to advocate for policy changes,” Bonds said. “It’s not beneficial to police agencies to not be transparent either. We see this time and time again: If the public doesn’t have information, they’re going to fill in the gaps with what they know.”
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