Where internal affairs activity concentrates in New Jersey

Essex County reported 2,953 internal affairs investigations in 2025, more than any other county in New Jersey.^[1] Camden followed with 2,404.^[1] At the other end, Salem County reported 66 and Warren reported 98.^[1] The gap is large, and most of it is not mysterious.

Size explains most of the gap

Counties with more officers report more investigations. Essex agencies named 1,593 officers in their 2025 investigations; Salem agencies named 38.^[1] That officer count is the Attorney General's own column, and it counts officers who appeared in an investigation, not officers employed, so it is a measure of activity rather than headcount. Either way, more officers doing more police work produce more complaints and more internal reviews. A raw county total is close to a population and staffing count wearing a different label.

That is why a bare ranking of counties by investigation volume is not a ranking of anything you would call misconduct. It mostly tells you where the officers are.

Per resident, the picture changes

Divide each county's 2025 investigations by its 2020 Census population and the order shifts. Camden leads at 4.59 investigations for every 1,000 residents, ahead of Essex at 3.42.^[1][3] Then the list stops looking like a list of big counties. Cumberland, Atlantic, and Cape May come next at 1.92, 1.88, and 1.80, three of the smaller counties in the state by population, ahead of Hudson at 1.66.^[1][3] Bergen, the most populous county, sits near the bottom at 0.81; Middlesex reports 0.72 and Ocean 0.55.^[1][3]

A per-resident rate is a fairer denominator than a raw count, but it is still not a misconduct rate. A shore county's population swells in summer and its policing with it; a county that hosts a large jail or a state facility reports investigations that have nothing to do with the people who live nearby. The rate corrects for one thing, the number of residents, and leaves the rest alone.

Five years, not one

A single year is a snapshot, and some of these counties move around from year to year. Essex reported 2,233 investigations in 2021, rose to 3,051 in 2023, dropped to 2,564 in 2024, and came back to 2,953 in 2025.^[1] Camden climbed more steadily, from 1,918 to 2,404 over the same five years.^[1] Hudson peaked at 1,469 in 2024 and fell to 1,203 the next year.^[1] Bergen went from 738 to 1,114 in 2023, then down to 777.^[1]

The smallest counties swing the most in proportion, because a few cases move the total. Sussex went from 97 investigations in 2021 to 155 in 2025; Salem went from 47 to 66.^[1] A 60 percent rise in a county that reports fewer than 200 investigations a year is a handful of additional cases, and reading it as a trend would be reading noise.

The county's biggest department, and the rest

A county number is an aggregate of very different departments, and in most of the large counties one agency accounts for a big share of it.

County	Investigations, 2025	Largest agency	Its share
Camden	2,404	Camden Police Department, 1,495	62%
Passaic	667	Paterson Police Department, 292	44%
Hudson	1,203	Jersey City Police Department, 445	37%
Essex	2,953	Newark Police Department, 978	33%
Bergen	777	Bergen County Sheriff's Department, 166	21%
Union	743	Elizabeth Police Department, 149	20%
Middlesex	622	Woodbridge Township Police Department, 77	12%
Monmouth	664	Asbury Park Police Department, 75	11%

Source: the Attorney General's agency totals for 2025, summed by county by this site.^[1]

Camden County's total is mostly one city department. Essex is Newark plus two large neighbors, East Orange with 462 and Irvington with 310.^[1] Monmouth and Middlesex are the opposite shape: dozens of mid-sized departments, none of them dominant, which is why their county totals are high and their largest agency's share is low. The aggregate can hide as much as it shows, and the county pages exist so a reader can see what sits behind it.

What size does not explain

A few things survive the size adjustment and are worth noticing.

The first is concentration inside a county, which the table above makes visible. The second is major discipline, which follows a different pattern from investigation volume. Camden County recorded 455 major discipline records across 2020 to 2025, the most of any county, more than Essex despite Essex reporting more investigations.^[2] Much of Camden's total comes from its county corrections department, which is a reminder that discipline and investigation volume measure different things and concentrate in different places.

How to read the county pages

Every county profile on this site lists its agencies with their own numbers, so you can see what sits behind the county total rather than stopping at the aggregate. The investigation counts are yearly snapshots as reported by each agency. A higher count can reflect either more misconduct or a more active internal affairs process, and the per-resident rate on each county page states its denominator so nobody has to guess what was divided by what.

The useful comparison is rarely county against county. It is a department against departments doing the same job at a similar size, which is what the rankings and report cards are built to show.