Stack revives bill to move NJ police probes to counties

The proposal has drawn mixed reactions from police accountability advocates and academics, who question whether prosecutors can truly remain independent.

A powerful Hudson County Democrat whose handling of police discipline came under scrutiny in a recent discrimination lawsuit wants to take internal affairs investigations away from local police departments and put them in the hands of county prosecutors.

State Sen. Brian Stack, who also serves as Union City’s mayor and public safety director, reintroduced the legislation on Oct. 5, less than two weeks after a jury awarded $853,000 to a former city police officer who accused Stack and other officials of discrimination.

Supporters say the proposal would make police misconduct investigations more independent and credible. But critics question whether transferring that responsibility to prosecutors, who work closely with local police, would do much to fix a system they say is fundamentally flawed.

Critics acknowledge that having county prosecutors run internal affairs may be slightly better than the current process, which allows officers to investigate their colleagues at the department level unless an allegation is particularly serious.

But it still won’t fix wider problems with the system, which attorney and government transparency advocate CJ Griffin said often produces egregious outcomes no matter who makes the decisions.

The results of internal investigations are often favorable to officers, she said, and complaints from the public are usually dismissed administratively and rarely investigated properly.

“You can talk to so many people who would tell you that the system we have now doesn’t work,” she told The Jersey Vindicator. “I don’t know that is really fixed by sending it to the county prosecutors … because the county prosecutors’ internal affairs processes are also very flawed.”

New Jersey law enforcement agencies opened more than 16,000 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to a database maintained by the state Attorney General’s Office. Just over a quarter of closed investigations resulted in findings of misconduct, with oral or written reprimands the most common punishment, according to the data.

If passed, the bill, S-4780, would require the state’s 21 county prosecutors to initiate all internal affairs investigations for municipal and county law enforcement agencies, as well as the departments that police New Jersey’s colleges and universities.

It would also require departments to transfer every public misconduct complaint to the county prosecutor, along with any petition for an extreme risk protective order against an officer, a court measure intended to temporarily restrict firearm access for people considered a danger to themselves or others.

County prosecutors already oversee local police internal affairs investigations, particularly those involving possible criminal conduct, under state guidelines. They can also take over investigations when necessary. But most complaints are initially handled by officers’ own departments, a practice Stack’s bill would change by requiring prosecutors to initiate the investigations themselves.

Stack, who represents the state’s 33rd Legislative District, did not respond to several requests for comment about the bill.

As Union City’s mayor and public safety director, Stack has a direct role in overseeing the city’s police force, including promotion and disciplinary decisions that came under scrutiny during an August civil trial.

Now-retired city police officer Juan Estrella sued Stack, the city, and the police department in 2022, claiming the mayor and police chief passed him over for promotions because of his Dominican heritage.

Estrella also alleged that the chief had “continuously and maliciously” harassed him with disciplinary actions he characterized as bogus and petty, along with a wrongful suspension, to prevent him from getting promoted. He accused Stack, as public safety director, of approving the chief’s decisions and failing to independently review the circumstances surrounding them.

Stack denied the allegations during the trial, but a Hudson County jury found him and former Police Chief Nichelle Luster liable for aiding and abetting discrimination, according to Hudson County View. The jury also found the city and police department liable and awarded Estrella $853,000 in damages.

The mayor later characterized the lawsuit as a money grab and said the city would appeal the verdict.

A legitimacy problem

Several academics said the move might help legitimize the much-maligned internal affairs process, which officers say is regularly weaponized against rank-and-file cops who fall out of favor with department leadership.

But it’s not an automatic fix, since prosecutors often work closely with local departments and know their chiefs well.

“If this was going to be done in a non-biased fashion, and they put on paper that there would be no backchannels to the chief, there would be no backstabbing, then yes, I agree with it,” said one Bergen County police officer who did not want to be named.

“I do not believe an agency should have its own internal affairs at this point,” the officer said. “It’s been proven that things get squashed that shouldn’t get squashed, and other things that should be squashed are embellished, then weaponized because they don’t like the officer.”

Danica Rue, director of investigations and police accountability for the state public defender’s office, said Stack’s proposal might also bring some consistency to the disciplinary process.

At the moment, many departments have different ways of handling sustained allegations against officers, and punishments can be “quite different” depending on where the officer works, she said.

“People being treated the same and having the rules meted out in the same way to every officer will be to everyone’s benefit,” Rue said. “I think it’s a cleaner process. It’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

Kishon Hickman, a professor in the law enforcement leadership graduate program at Seton Hall University, agreed that the move could be a good first step.

“It doesn’t automatically create independence,” said Hickman, who spent 21 years as an officer with the New York City Police Department. “But moving internal affairs one rank up definitely strengthens accountability. At that stage, you have a separate and distinct outfit running this. And the county prosecutor has the expertise.”

Hickman suggested introducing the program in one or two counties to determine its effectiveness before implementing it statewide.

“I think it’s something worth trying,” Hickman said. “And I think the measure of success … should be how many more complaints are resolved in a fair, more consistent manner. That’s where both the residents and the police departments benefit.”

Jason Williams, a professor of justice studies at Montclair State University, was less convinced about how effective the change would be.

Moving internal affairs to the counties might create a sense of institutional distance, especially for those who have lived with the costs of police overreach and brutality, he said. But that doesn’t necessarily mean investigations will be independent or transparent.

“Internal affairs has always presented a legitimacy problem because we’re asking law enforcement to investigate members of their own organization,” he said. “But county prosecutors are still themselves part of law enforcement, part of that apparatus.”

“I can understand the logic,” he continued. “But the question for me isn’t whether the investigation moved. It’s whether moving it actually changes the underlying accountability structure.”

Both Williams and Griffin would rather see the state move toward civilian complaint review boards made up of community members who investigate allegations of wrongdoing.

“The prosecutor works with these police officers,” Griffin said. “They don’t want officers to have misconduct findings because that means the investigations they’ve been involved in have some level of taint. So, [prosecutors] have an incentive to not uphold the allegations.”

“Maybe this is one level slightly better,” she said of Stack’s proposal. “But for it to be truly a system that works, it has to be people investigating that have no investment in the outcome.”