What major discipline in New Jersey actually looks like

New Jersey's major discipline data records only the serious end of police discipline: termination, demotion, or a suspension of more than five days. Across the 3,006 records from 2020 to 2025, the shape of what agencies actually did is clear enough to describe plainly.

Suspension is the common outcome

Of the 3,006 records, 2,326 involve a suspension, 471 a termination, and 58 a demotion.^[1] These flags can overlap on a single record, because an officer can be suspended pending a termination that later becomes final, so the numbers are not meant to add to the total. The pattern they show is that serious discipline in New Jersey usually means time off, not the end of a career.

For the suspensions that carry a day count, the median is 18 days.^[1] Most sit well short of a year. But 140 records carry a suspension of 180 days or more, which is the length at which a suspension stops looking like a penalty and starts looking like a career interruption.^[1]

Termination is rarer than the headlines suggest

471 terminations across six years, out of 3,006 finalized actions, is the firm end of the scale.^[1] Termination is what most people picture when they hear "police discipline," but in this record it is the exception. That is not a judgment about whether it should be more common. It is what the data says agencies did.

There is also a quieter exit. 282 records note that the officer resigned, retired, transferred, or separated while an internal affairs matter was still pending.^[1] A separation while a case is open is not the same as being cleared, and it is not the same as being fired. It is its own outcome, and the data flags it as one.

What the shape does not tell you

These counts describe how discipline was applied, not how often misconduct occurred or how serious any single case was. A suspension for a paperwork failure and a suspension for excessive force can carry the same day count and sit in the same column. The severity of what happened is in each record's sustained charges and the agency's synopsis, which is why this site shows those on every officer page rather than stopping at the sanction.

The record is what it is: mostly suspensions, a firm minority of terminations, a smaller set of quiet separations. Read together, it is a portrait of how New Jersey draws the line on serious discipline, drawn from the agencies' own reporting.