Cittarelli‘s proposal risks undoing years of police reform in New Jersey

As part of his “restore law and order” platform, Jack Cittarelli has promised that as governor, he will “eliminate mandatory ‘Use of Force’ reporting when a firearm is not discharged.”

To understand how significant this change would be—one on which Mikie Sherrill has not taken a position—it helps to understand the 25-year, bipartisan system of force reporting that has improved public safety and police accountability.

In 2000, a Republican attorney general revised the state’s Use of Force policy to require every use of force to be documented on a Use of Force Report. A Use of Force Report records basic data about the officer and the person upon whom force was used, the person’s actions toward the officer, and the type of force used.

Every attorney general since then has kept this Use of Force Report requirement.

In 2017, after reporters from The Bergen Record were denied access to Use of Force Reports that would reveal which officers shot and killed a man, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in North Jersey Media Group v. Township of Lyndhurst, 229 N.J. 541 (2017), that Use of Force Reports must be disclosed to the public.

A year later, NJ Advance Media published The Force Report, an award-winning database that analyzed more than 70,000 Use of Force Reports. The data revealed that a Black person was three times more likely to face police force than a white person. In some towns, that disparity was much higher.

This data created change. For example, Maplewood, where officers used force more than any other department, formed a Community Board on Police so that residents and Township Committee members could work together to explore reforms to improve the police department.

The Force Report also found that supervisors failed to flag officers who used disproportionately high amounts of force. In response, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal amended state policy in late 2020 to require officers to electronically file Use of Force Reports within 24 hours, mandated two-level supervisory review of every incident to ensure legality and non-bias, directed supervisors to use force incidents as training tools, and required every department to submit an annual use of force review to the county prosecutor.

In 2021, Grewal launched a public Use of Force Dashboard, which provides data from nearly every force incident since October 2020 and lets users sort by town, race, officers, type of force, and more.

To grasp the impact of Cittarelli’s proposal, the dashboard shows nearly 50,000 force incidents over the past five years. If reporting were limited to firearm discharges, it would capture fewer than 250 incidents—erasing thousands of punches, takedowns, Tasers, and canine bites.

The public, which has footed the bill for millions in excessive force settlements, would be deprived of key data that enables them to monitor their police departments for concerning trends and to lobby for reforms. Police chiefs would be deprived of this community input.

Such a change would also prevent meaningful oversight inside police departments. Supervisors would have no systematic way to review force incidents for legality or to correct patterns before they escalate into something tragic.

The stakes are even higher for people of color. Use of force continues to be used disproportionately against people of color. Without full and complete reporting, that fact becomes harder to prove and address. Under Cittarelli’s proposal, a Use of Force Report would be unnecessary even if an officer seriously injures someone, so long as a gun was not discharged.

Mandatory Use of Force reporting is a decades-old, bipartisan requirement. It produces better policy and training, and it keeps the public—who fund the police and are liable for their misconduct—informed and safer.

Jack should back off on his promise. And Mikie should tell us where she stands.