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Department profile · Monmouth County

Highlands Police Department

Reported as: Highlands PDMunicipal police

Jurisdiction context

Civil service jurisdiction

Discipline at this department is governed by the Title 4A civil service framework, matched to Highlands Borough on the New Jersey Civil Service Commission roster.

Read how the process works or the Title 4A glossary. Browse NJCSNavigator’s civil service jurisdiction directory for the full local-jurisdiction roster.

Reflects the NJCSC Appendix A roster as of 2026-07-04. Context only, not legal advice.

Radio encryption

Highlands Police Department encrypts its radio communications (P25 AES-256, all operations), according to PoliceRadioEncryption.com, as of 2026-04-21 (unverified).

AnalysisThis site treats radio encryption as a meaningful transparency signal. When a department closes its radio traffic to the public, the public loses a real-time window into how it operates. That is context for reading the discipline and internal affairs records on this page, not a figure drawn from them.

In brief

Highlands Police Department, municipal police in Monmouth County, named 2 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 across 3 investigations. Its rate of 150 per 100 officers runs above the Monmouth County median of 125 and the 125.9 municipal median, a gap that can reflect more misconduct or a department that logs a fuller share of the complaints made to it. Of the 3 investigations detailed for 2025, 2 reported sustained complaints. Attendance Issues, Neglect of Duty and Other Departmental Rule Violation were the allegation categories on file.

One major discipline record appears across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2020. Highlands received an F on the report card, at the 93rd percentile among 100 peers in the 1-14 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

Written by this site strictly from the figures on this page; every number is cited below.

Officers named in IA cases, 2025

2[1]

Distinct officers in that year's IA investigations, not total staffing

IA investigations, 2025

3[1]

Incidents, 2025

3[1]

Major discipline records

1

All years, 2020-2025

Staffing

As reported by the department to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) census, full-time personnel as of October 31 each year. This is a different measurement from the "officers named in IA cases" figure above; see the methodology.

Sworn officers, 2025

0[6]

66 years reported

0 sworn officers in 2025, down from 6 in 1960 (-100%).
Yearsworn officers
19606
19615
19625
19635
19646
19656
19667
19677
196810
19697
19709
197111
197210
197310
197410
19759
19768
197712
19789
197914
198013
198112
198210
198310
198411
198512
198613
198713
198812
198912
199013
199113
199213
199313
199413
199513
199613
199713
199813
199913
200014
200114
200214
200312
200413
200514
200613
200713
200814
200914
201014
201113
201213
201313
201413
201514
201616
201714
201814
201914
202015
202114
202215
202316
202416
20250

Civilian employees, 2025

0[7]

Female sworn officers, 2025

0[8]

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

0[9]

Municipal departments only

AnalysisComputed by this site from LEE reported totals; not an official statistic.

How Highlands Police Department's sworn staffing compares with its real peer group (same agency type, similar size band), not an assumed bell curve.

Peer group: Municipal police, 1-14 officers (n=100)

Sworn officers: Municipal police, 1-14 officers
RangeAgencies
0–212
2–43
4–61
6–817
8–1011
10–1215
12–1441

Highlands Police Department: 0 sworn officers: 6th percentile among Municipal police, 1-14 officers (n=100).

The match between this FBI record and this department is this site's inference, not a certified mapping. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.

Officer pay and school-staff pay

County comparison

A separate dataset from the discipline records above: NJ Treasury pension salaries as of March 31, 2026, for the 16 active Highlands Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$109,094[2]

16 active officers

Median local school staff

$83,070

HIGHLANDS BORO BD OF ED, 23 TPAF members

Against the local district

1.31x

Median officer to median local school staff

Against the county

1.25x

Median officer to Monmouth County school-staff median

AnalysisEvery ratio here is computed by this site from as-reported pensionable salaries. The local school figure comes from the pension employer "HIGHLANDS BORO BD OF ED", linked to this municipality only because exactly one district in the county resolves to it. A pay comparison is not a statement about either budget. The full county comparison, including the distribution and the tenure-adjusted figure, is on the Monmouth County pay page.

Military surplus equipment (1033 program)

No 1033 transfers recorded. No surplus-equipment transfers appear for this agency under a high-confidence name match in the Defense Logistics Agency's file as of 2026-06-30. That can mean the agency received nothing through the program, or that a recipient name in the federal file did not confidently match this department. See the methodology for how the match is made, or the statewide 1033 overview for how the program spreads across New Jersey.

Internal affairs investigations by year

counts

Internal affairs investigations reported by Highlands Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
202120
202215
202313
202412
20253

Incidents

3 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Highlands Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
202110
20228
20238
20248
20253

Officers on IA rows

3 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Highlands Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
202412
20253
Analysis

Computed by this site from the two figures the agency reports each year. Not a misconduct rate: it describes how an agency resolved what it investigated.

share of total · 5 reported years

Share of internal affairs investigations sustained by Highlands Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
20226.667
20230
202433.333
202566.667

Statewide, 19.5 percent of investigations reported a sustained complaint in 2025. How dispositions break down statewide.

Complaint mix, 2025

Most serious allegation per investigation, as categorized by the reporting agency. Officer-level rows list 3 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Highlands Police Department, 2025
Attendance Issues1
Neglect of Duty1
Other Departmental Rule Violation1
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Attendance Issues · Neglect of Duty · Other Departmental Rule Violation

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Highlands Police Department, 2025
Sustained2
Exonerated1

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

AnalysisRanked and folded by this site. The counts inside each panel are as reported.

Demeanor

25 of 63

Demeanor allegations reported by Highlands Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20219
20226
20237
20243
20250

Other Departmental Rule Violation

11 of 63

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Highlands Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20214
20220
20231
20245
20251

Excessive Force

8 of 63

Excessive Force allegations reported by Highlands Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20226
20231
20240
20250

Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency

3 of 63

Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency allegations reported by Highlands Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20232
20241
20250

Other (8 categories)

16 of 63

Other (8 categories) allegations reported by Highlands Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20216
20223
20232
20243
20252

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Highlands Police Department150.0
County median, municipal police (41)125.0
NJ median, municipal police (445)125.9

Investigations per 100 officers named in that year's IA investigations (the Attorney General's own "Number of Officers" field, a distinct-officer count drawn from the IA case data itself, not a department headcount). A higher number is ambiguous on its own: it can reflect more misconduct, or a stronger internal reporting culture. Medians are computed within the same agency type only.

AnalysisA second, independent rate using FBI-reported staffing instead.

3 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 0 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[21] = Infinity per 100 FBI-reported sworn officers. This is a genuinely different denominator from the rate above, not a correction of it; the two should not be added or averaged together. See the methodology for why these two officer counts diverge.

Report card

Grade F: Highest fifth of peers

On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology

Combined standing
93rd percentile of 100 peers
Confidence
Medium confidence
  • small agency; per-officer rates swing widely on a handful of cases

Where this agency falls among its peers

The actual spread of discipline severity across Highlands Police Department's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.

Peer group: Municipal police, 1-14 officers (n=100)

Discipline severity: Municipal police, 1-14 officers
RangeAgencies
0–5074
50–1006
100–1508
150–2002
200–2504
250–3002
300–3504

Highlands Police Department: 25.641 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 69th percentile among Municipal police, 1-14 officers (n=100).

How the grade is built

Three components, each a percentile within the peer group. The combined standing is their weighted mean, re-ranked among peers; the grade is the fifth of the peer group it lands in.

IA volumeweight 40%

88th percentileof 100 peers

160.4 investigations per 100 officers (multi-year mean)

Internal affairs investigations per 100 reported officers, averaged over the years where the agency reported both figures.

Discipline severityweight 40%

69th percentileof 100 peers

25.6 severity-weighted discipline per 100 officers, 2020-2025

Major discipline records weighted by sanction (termination 4, demotion 3, suspension 2, other 1) per 100 officers.

Allegation severityweight 20%

73rd percentileof 100 peers

2.29 mean severity tier (1 low - 4 critical)

Mean severity tier of IA allegations across 2021-2025, using the published tier map; unknown values excluded.

What this grade can and can't tell you

  • The underlying data is self-reported by agencies, one yearly snapshot at a time.
  • Allegations are not findings; many complaints end unfounded, exonerated, or not sustained.
  • There is no arrest or call-volume denominator in this data, so nothing here is a per-capita misconduct rate. A genuinely independent staffing-based rate, sourced from the FBI rather than this grade's own data, appears above when available. It is a different measurement, not a more accurate version of the grade.
  • A higher internal affairs volume is ambiguous: it can indicate more misconduct, or a more robust oversight and reporting culture. The grade weighs it anyway, because volume is what the record offers; that choice is published, not hidden.
  • The grade is one lens. The records it reads are on this page above.

Where this agency ranks

AnalysisRankings compare agencies of the same type only, on figures as reported. A high rank is reported volume, not a verdict.[22] How each metric is defined.
This agency's rank on each metric, among agencies of the same type
MetricValueRank
IA per 100 investigated officers2025150.098th of 445 municipal police
IA investigations20253348th of 445 municipal police
IA incidents20253333rd of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-20251184th of 282 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year0.00449th of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.25x273rd of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present16253rd of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

0 major discipline records in 2025, down from 1 in 2020 (-100%).
Yearmajor discipline records
20201
20210
20220
20230
20240
20250

0 major discipline records in 2025, down from 1 in 2020 (-100%).

Major discipline records reported by Highlands Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2020Troy HartsgrovePatrol OfficerSuspended 30 days[23]

Every name links to the officer's record page with the agency's full synopsis and citation.

Public records requests

Records requests about this department filed through OPRAmachine, an independent site that files Open Public Records Act requests in public and publishes the responses.[3] This is a third-party, user-generated source, separate in origin from the Attorney General records elsewhere on this page.

Current as of 12 July 2026. These figures are a point-in-time snapshot and do not update: requests filed to OPRAmachine after that date do not appear here. For live activity, see this body on OPRAmachine.

This department has no separate listing on OPRAmachine. Records requests for it are handled through Highlands Borough, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 16 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 72 filed to Highlands Borough are about something else and are not shown.

Police-related requests

16[3]

Identified by subject line, of 88 filed to Highlands Borough

Most recent request

December 2025[3]

First recorded February 2019

Awaiting a response

11[3]

Requests with no response recorded yet

What happened to those requests

Statuses as recorded on OPRAmachine. They are set by the person who filed the request when they classify what came back, not by the agency and not by any court. They describe the fate of a records request and nothing else.

Recorded outcomes of police-related records requests to Highlands Borough (requests)
Awaiting agency response11
Requester reported success3
Request refused1
Requester reported partial success1

Recent requests

The 12 most recent police-related requests to Highlands Borough, by date and recorded status. Each was written by a member of the public. A request is a question somebody asked. It is not a finding, not an allegation this site makes, and not evidence that anything happened.

  1. 2025-12-08Requester reported success
  2. 2025-11-13Request refused
  3. 2025-09-15Awaiting agency response
  4. 2025-04-25Awaiting agency response
  5. 2025-02-11Requester reported success
  6. 2024-09-28Awaiting agency response
  7. 2024-09-10Requester reported success
  8. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  9. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  10. 2021-07-27Awaiting agency response
  11. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
  12. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
Show what each request asked for, as the requester wrote it

These titles are quoted from OPRAmachine exactly as the requester typed them. They are the requester's words, not this site's, and some describe what the requester believed or suspected. Nothing here has been established as fact.

File your own records request

Anyone can request records from this municipality under the Open Public Records Act. This link opens a request on OPRAmachine, pre-filled with a neutral starting point you can edit or replace before you send it. The request, and any response, will be published there.

File an OPRA request about this department

See every request filed to Highlands Borough on OPRAmachine.

What this section can and can't tell you

  • A request is not a finding. Every entry records what a member of the public asked for. None of it establishes that an agency did anything, and none of it is an allegation this site is making.
  • Statuses come from the requester, not the agency. On OPRAmachine the person who filed the request classifies the response they got, so “successful” means they said they got what they asked for. It is not the agency's word and not an adjudication.
  • Request volume is not a measure of misconduct. A long list usually reflects public interest, local journalism, or one determined requester. A short list usually means few people have asked.
  • This covers OPRAmachine only. Most OPRA requests in New Jersey are filed directly with agencies and never appear here, so this is a floor, not a total.
  • It is frozen at 12 July 2026. The figures come from a snapshot of OPRAmachine taken on that date and nothing refreshes them, so anything filed since is missing. Treat every number here as a lower bound that is only getting further out of date.
  • The count is an undercount, by design. Requests to Highlands Borough are sorted by subject line, because that custodian also handles permits, property, and code enforcement. A request that is genuinely about the police but carries a vague subject line, and many do read only “OPRA Request,” is not counted here. The sorting is this site's own reading of the request titles, not a fact from the source, and it is deliberately cautious: it would rather miss a police request than show you somebody's building permit.

The match between this OPRAmachine body and this department is this site's inference, not a certified mapping. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.

Questions and answers

What is a summary of Highlands Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Highlands Police Department, municipal police in Monmouth County, named 2 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 across 3 investigations. Its rate of 150 per 100 officers runs above the Monmouth County median of 125 and the 125.9 municipal median, a gap that can reflect more misconduct or a department that logs a fuller share of the complaints made to it. Of the 3 investigations detailed for 2025, 2 reported sustained complaints. Attendance Issues, Neglect of Duty and Other Departmental Rule Violation were the allegation categories on file. One major discipline record appears across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2020. Highlands received an F on the report card, at the 93rd percentile among 100 peers in the 1-14 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

How many internal affairs investigations did Highlands Police Department report in 2025?

Highlands Police Department reported 3 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 2 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does Highlands Police Department have?

Highlands Police Department has 1 major discipline records in the Attorney General's 2020-2025 releases, of which 0 were terminations. These are final, adjudicated actions, not allegations.

Does Highlands Police Department encrypt its radio communications?

According to PoliceRadioEncryption.com, Highlands Police Department encrypts all of its radio communications (P25 AES-256), as recorded on 2026-04-21. This site treats radio encryption as a transparency signal, which is analysis, not a figure from the discipline data.

How many officers does Highlands Police Department have?

Highlands Police Department reported 0 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025. That is 0 sworn officers per 1,000 residents. This is a different measurement from the "officers named in IA cases" figure elsewhere on this page, which counts distinct officers in that year's internal affairs investigations, not total staffing.

What does Highlands Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 16 active Highlands Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $109,094. The median for the 23 TPAF-enrolled staff at HIGHLANDS BORO BD OF ED is $83,070, a ratio of 1.31x. Against the Monmouth County school-staff median the ratio is 1.25x. These are pensionable base salaries: they exclude overtime, stipends, longevity and leave payouts for both groups, and a school contract year and a police work year are different lengths. TPAF covers certificated school staff, not only classroom teachers.

Sources

  1. [1]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2345. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  2. [2]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. ↩
  3. [3]Records-request activity for Highlands Borough. OPRAmachine (opramachine.com), an independent public-records platform. Publicly visible requests only. Point-in-time snapshot taken 2026-07-12 from a database export dated 2026-07-11. Not updated after that date; see opramachine.com for current activity. ↩
  4. [4]New Jersey Internal Affairs Officers, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Officer counts summed across every Highlands PD row. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  5. [5]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.
  6. [6]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8432. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  7. [7]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8432. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  8. [8]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8432. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  9. [9]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8432. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  10. [10]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 310. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  11. [11]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1329. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  12. [12]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1834. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  13. [13]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 813. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  14. [14]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2345. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
  15. [15]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Highlands PD row for 2025; row 1 is the header. ↩
  16. [16]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Highlands PD row for 2021. ↩
  17. [17]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Highlands PD row for 2022. ↩
  18. [18]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Highlands PD row for 2023. ↩
  19. [19]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Highlands PD row for 2024. ↩
  20. [20]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Highlands PD row for 2025. ↩
  21. [21]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8432. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
  22. [22]Ranks computed by this site over the Attorney General internal affairs agency totals and major discipline releases, within agency type. Each ranking page lists every agency and its source rows. ↩
  23. [23]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 2897. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩