Independent · Compiled from public records
Police discipline in New Jersey, on the record.
Internal affairs and discipline records for every police department in New Jersey. Every fact here traces to a specific row of the Attorney General's public data, cited on the page.
One record, as the agency filed it
Sustained charges, as written by the agency
(a)(1) , or Failure to Perform Duties (a)(2) (a)(6) an Public Employee (a)(7) (a)(12) Obedience to Laws and Rules and Regulations Performance of Duty Unbecoming Conduct Prohibited Activity on Duty Leaving Assigned Duty Post/Relief Inattentiveness to Duty
Underlined phrases are causes for discipline under N.J.A.C. 4A:2-2.3. Tap one to see what it means.
In plain language, written by this site
Officer Joseph Frino, while on duty, failed to properly conduct security checks and was found to be in possession of his cellphone inside the secured area of the Bergen County Jail, the Bergen County Sheriffs Office reported for 2022. Frino was suspended for 20 days.
Reported totals have risen each year. That reflects more reporting and cleared appeal backlogs as much as more misconduct. How we read the trend.
Recent cases
All 3,006 cases →- Suspended
Phillipsburg Police Department · 2025
Patrolman Palmer was charged with computer criminal access, official misconduct, and aggravated assault upon a law enforcement officer.
- Suspended 180 days
Westfield Police Department · 2025
Patrol Officer Matthew O'Holla was suspended for 180 days by the Westfield Police Department in 2025 and separated while an internal affairs matter was pending.
- Suspended 90 days
Union Township Police Department · 2025
Officer Wilson Limage of the Union Township Police Department was suspended for 90 days for conduct unbecoming a public employee.
- Suspended 10 days
Union County Sheriff's Office · 2025
Sheriff's Officer Christopher Wolf of the Union County Sheriffs Office was suspended for 10 working days for conduct unbecoming, insubordination and neglect of duty.
- Separated while IA pending
Union County Sheriff's Office · 2025
County Correctional Police Officer Regina Major of the Union County Sheriffs Office separated from the agency while an investigation was pending.
- Suspended 162 days
Union County Sheriff's Office · 2025
Sheriff's Officer Grisel Agurto of the Union County Sheriffs Office was suspended for 162 working days.
- Suspended 8 days
Summit Police Department · 2025
Officer Watson berated an on-duty sergeant, standing over her as she sat, waving his finger, and screaming that he did not have to listen to her because he was senior and the rules did not apply to him, according to the Summit Police Department.
- Suspended 24 days
Springfield Township Police Department · 2025
While working the communications desk, Patrol Officer Bratsch received a report of a shoplifting, assigned himself the call, then drove in the opposite direction and had a sit-down breakfast, delaying his response by approximately one hour, according to the Springfield Township Police Department in Union County.
Final, adjudicated discipline as reported by the employing agency. Summaries are written by this site from each cited record. Badge color reflects the most serious reported sanction; see methodology.
Reporting from the record
All 19 articles →Explainer · 2026-07
The New Jersey agencies that report no internal affairs investigations
Each year the Attorney General publishes a list of law enforcement agencies that reported zero internal affairs investigations. Most are small. A few appear year after year.
Explainer · 2026-07
Corrections agencies account for a large share of New Jersey's major police discipline
Two state and county corrections departments together produced more than 900 major discipline records from 2020 to 2025. Here is why they sit apart from municipal policing in this data.
Explainer · 2026-07
Major discipline reports are rising. Read the trend carefully.
Finalized major discipline in New Jersey climbed from 226 records in 2020 to 816 in 2025. Three things could drive that, and only one of them is more misconduct.
Explainer · 2026-07
The officers disciplined more than once
Most officers in New Jersey's major discipline data appear a single time. But 385 appear more than once, and one appears fifteen times.
Statewide patterns
What internal affairs handles
Most serious allegation · 2025
| Other Departmental Rule Violation | 5,113 |
|---|---|
| Demeanor | 2,233 |
| Use Of Force Policy Violation | 1,918 |
| Excessive Force | 911 |
| Differential Treatment | 783 |
| Sexual Assault/Criminal Sexual Violation | 720 |
| Neglect of Duty | 668 |
| Other Criminal Violation | 628 |
Most major discipline, by agency type
Record counts · 2020-2025
Municipal police
- Jersey City Police Department9213 term.
- Newark Police Department875 term.
- Camden Police Department496 term.
- Trenton Police Department448 term.
- Atlantic City Police Department361 term.
| Jersey City Police Department | 92 |
|---|---|
| Newark Police Department | 87 |
| Camden Police Department | 49 |
| Trenton Police Department | 44 |
| Atlantic City Police Department | 36 |
| Hoboken Police Department | 19 |
Corrections
- Department Of Corrections577136 term.
- Camden County Corrections3336 term.
- Atlantic County Corrections1273 term.
- Essex County Corrections6225 term.
- Burlington County Corrections524 term.
- Monmouth County Corrections471 term.
| Department Of Corrections | 577 |
|---|---|
| Camden County Corrections | 333 |
| Atlantic County Corrections | 127 |
| Essex County Corrections | 62 |
| Burlington County Corrections | 52 |
| Monmouth County Corrections | 47 |
All 21 counties
Map all 21 counties →Volume mostly tracks population
Residents against IA investigations · 2025
| Item | Residents (2020 Census) | IA investigations |
|---|---|---|
| Essex | 863,728 | 2,953 |
| Camden | 523,485 | 2,404 |
| Hudson | 724,854 | 1,203 |
| Bergen | 955,732 | 777 |
| Union | 575,345 | 743 |
| Passaic | 524,118 | 667 |
| Monmouth | 643,615 | 664 |
| Middlesex | 863,162 | 622 |
| Atlantic | 274,534 | 517 |
| Burlington | 461,860 | 497 |
| Morris | 509,285 | 445 |
| Mercer | 387,340 | 361 |
| Ocean | 637,229 | 350 |
| Somerset | 345,361 | 306 |
| Cumberland | 154,152 | 296 |
| Gloucester | 302,294 | 271 |
| Cape May | 95,263 | 171 |
| Sussex | 144,221 | 155 |
| Hunterdon | 128,947 | 110 |
| Warren | 109,632 | 98 |
| Salem | 64,837 | 66 |
Internal affairs investigations, 2025. Shading groups the counties by rank.[2] Map every county measure.
More from the record
- Report cards
- 540 departments graded against peers of the same type and size. See the grades
- Radio encryption
- 97 departments encrypt their radio communications, which closes a channel the public and the press used to be able to hear. Which departments
- Deaths during police encounters
- The Fatal Encounters project is an independent dataset of all deaths during police encounters of any kind (pursuits, suicides, and medical events included), 2000 through 2021. A record is not a misconduct finding. Collection ended December 2021. All 549 records
- Military surplus equipment
- 179 New Jersey agencies have acquired surplus military equipment through the federal 1033 program: $41.8 million in original DoD cost, $38.0 million of it tactical items. Figures describe equipment received over time (as of 2026-06-30), not what an agency currently holds, and acquiring equipment is not misconduct. How this data is read. The statewide overview
- FBI staffing census
- 507 departments carry an FBI-reported staffing profile (sworn and civilian headcounts) on their pages.[3] How staffing is matched
- Pension and salary
- 890 officers named in discipline records have a NJ Treasury pension or salary record matched at high confidence on their pages, as of 2026-03-31.[4] How matches are made
- Police pay and school pay
- On the same pension snapshot (2026-03-31), the median police officer reports 1.32 times the pensionable salary of the median school staff member statewide. County by county that runs from 1.05 in Cumberland County to 1.65 in Bergen County. Base salary only for both, and a pay comparison is not a budget claim. [5] County by county
- Civil service jurisdictions
- 214 agencies sit in civil service jurisdictions on the NJCSC roster as of 2026-07-04, where the Title 4A discipline framework governs.[6] What that means
- How this works
- Sources, definitions, and the limits of the data. Methodology
Sources
- [1]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. Counts derived from all 3,006 data rows; row 1 is the header. ↩
- [2]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Statewide totals summed over all 2025 agency rows; row 1 is the header. ↩
- [3]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. Retrieved 2026-07-04. ↩
- [4]YourMoney Active Pension Members (PFRS/SPRS subset) and YourMoney Retired Pension Members (PFRS/SPRS subset). New Jersey Department of the Treasury. Snapshots as of March 31, 2026. Derived from the public YourMoney Active Pension Members and YourMoney Retired Pension Members datasets, https://www.yourmoney.nj.gov/. ↩
- [5]YourMoney Active Pension Members (PFRS/SPRS subset) and YourMoney Active Pension Members (TPAF subset, names removed). New Jersey Department of the Treasury. Both snapshots as of March 31, 2026. Derived from the public YourMoney Active Pension Members dataset, https://www.yourmoney.nj.gov/. Figures are computed by this site from as-reported pensionable salaries; the row-by-row account of what entered each figure is published at /data/pay-comparison.json. ↩
- [6]New Jersey Civil Service Commission, Appendix A local jurisdiction roster, as of 2026-07-04. Matched to the agency registry by municipality and county. ↩
- [7]New Jersey county boundaries. New Jersey Office of Information Technology, Office of GIS (NJOGIS). NJ_Counties_3857 (FeatureServer layer 0), https://services2.arcgis.com/XVOqAjTOJ5P6ngMu/arcgis/rest/services/NJ_Counties_3857/FeatureServer/0. 2020 boundary delineation. Retrieved 2026-07-27. Boundaries are generalized for display. This data set is not a survey document and must not be used as such. The polygons do not represent legal boundaries.
- [8]County population: 2020 Decennial Census, as republished by NJOGIS, carried on NJ_Counties_3857 (FeatureServer layer 0). New Jersey Office of Information Technology, Office of GIS (NJOGIS), https://services2.arcgis.com/XVOqAjTOJ5P6ngMu/arcgis/rest/services/NJ_Counties_3857/FeatureServer/0. Retrieved 2026-07-27. ↩