Department profile · Ocean County

Ocean County Prosecutor's Office

Reported as: Ocean Co Prosecutors OfficeCounty prosecutor

Jurisdiction context

Civil service status not verified

We could not match this agency to the NJCSC roster with confidence. Whether the Title 4A framework applies here is not asserted either way.

See the context on non-civil-service departments.

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

In brief

The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, a county prosecutor agency, named 3 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 4 investigations, a rate of 133.3 per 100 officers. That equals the Ocean County median of 133.3 and runs above the 107.5 median for prosecutor agencies, a comparison that can point to more misconduct or to more complete documentation of complaints. Of the 4 investigations detailed for 2025, 3 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, with Domestic violence (Criminal) and Other Criminal Violation also listed. Allegations are not findings.

Three major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2021 and 2023. Ocean Co Prosecutors Office received an F on the report card, at the 98th percentile among 21 peers in the group of all prosecutor agencies, 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

3^{^[1]}

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

IA investigations, 2025

4^{^[1]}

Incidents, 2025

4^{^[1]}

Major discipline records

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

65^{^[4]}

50 years reported

65 sworn officers in 2025, up from 32 in 1976 (+103%).
Year	sworn officers
1976	32
1977	29
1978	30
1979	38
1980	40
1981	39
1982	42
1983	42
1984	40
1985	47
1986	41
1987	62
1988	62
1989	66
1990	78
1991	75
1992	74
1993	60
1994	59
1995	56
1996	56
1997	57
1998	63
1999	63
2000	65
2001	66
2002	68
2003	104
2004	71
2005	76
2006	72
2007	77
2008	79
2009	80
2010	77
2011	73
2012	76
2013	72
2014	70
2015	70
2016	67
2017	69
2018	71
2019	68
2020	68
2021	66
2022	66
2023	68
2024	67
2025	65

Civilian employees, 2025

109^{^[5]}

1.68 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

22^{^[6]}

33.8% of sworn officers

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

How Ocean County Prosecutor's Office's sworn staffing compares with its real peer group (same agency type, similar size band), not an assumed bell curve.

Peer group: County prosecutor, all prosecutor agencies (n=20)

Sworn officers: County prosecutor, all prosecutor agencies
Range	Agencies
0–50	9
50–100	8
100–150	3

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Ocean County Prosecutor's Office: 65 sworn officers: 57th percentile among County prosecutor, all prosecutor agencies (n=20).

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.

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 Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, by year
Category	counts
2021	8
2022	5
2023	3
2024	3
2025	4

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Incidents

4 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, by year
Year	counts
2021	7
2022	5
2023	3
2024	3
2025	4

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Officers on IA rows

3 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, by year
Year	counts
2021	not reported
2022	not reported
2023	not reported
2024	2
2025	3

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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 Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, by year
Year	share of total
2021	0
2022	20
2023	66.667
2024	66.667
2025	75

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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 Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, 2025
Other Departmental Rule Violation	2
Domestic violence (Criminal)	1
Other Criminal Violation	1

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AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Other Departmental Rule Violation · Domestic violence (Criminal) · Other Criminal Violation

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, 2025
Sustained	3
not provided	1

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Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

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

Other Departmental Rule Violation

8 of 23

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, by year
Year	counts
2021	6
2022	0
2023	0
2024	0
2025	2

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Domestic violence (Non-Criminal)

3 of 23

Domestic violence (Non-Criminal) allegations reported by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, by year
Year	counts
2021	0
2022	2
2023	1
2024	0
2025	0

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Drug Test Failure

3 of 23

Drug Test Failure allegations reported by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, by year
Year	counts
2021	0
2022	2
2023	1
2024	0
2025	0

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False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal)

3 of 23

False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal) allegations reported by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, by year
Year	counts
2021	0
2022	1
2023	0
2024	2
2025	0

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Other (5 categories)

6 of 23

Other (5 categories) allegations reported by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, by year
Year	counts
2021	2
2022	0
2023	1
2024	1
2025	2

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Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →

Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Ocean County Prosecutor's Office	133.3
County median, county prosecutor (1)	133.3
NJ median, county prosecutor (21)	107.5

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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.

4 investigations reported for 2025^[1] ÷ 65 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025^[18] = 6.2 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: 98th percentile of 21 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 Ocean County Prosecutor's Office's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.

Peer group: County prosecutor, all prosecutor agencies (n=21)

Discipline severity: County prosecutor, all prosecutor agencies
Range	Agencies
0–100	16
100–200	2
200–300	2
300–400	1

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Ocean County Prosecutor's Office: 166.667 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 83rd percentile among County prosecutor, all prosecutor agencies (n=21).

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%

83rd percentileof 21 peers

128.3 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%

83rd percentileof 21 peers

166.7 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%

79th percentileof 21 peers

2.23 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.^[19] How each metric is defined.

This agency's rank on each metric, among agencies of the same type
Metric	Value	Rank
IA per 100 investigated officers2025	133.3	5th of 21 county prosecutor
IA investigations2025	4	14th of 21 county prosecutor
IA incidents2025	4	13th of 21 county prosecutor
Major discipline2020-2025	3	2nd of 16 county prosecutor

Major discipline records

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.
Year	major discipline records
2020	0
2021	1
2022	0
2023	2
2024	0
2025	0

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.

Major discipline records reported by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, 2020-2025
Year	Officer	Rank	Sanction as reported	Src
2023	Melissa Rose	Sergeant	Suspended 8 days	^[20]
2023	Michael Proto	Detective	Suspended 180 days	^[21]
2021	John Steinhauer	Sergeant	Suspended 75 days	^[22]

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

Public records requests

No records-request history is shown for this department. OPRAmachine, an independent site that files and publishes Open Public Records Act requests, has no public body that confidently matches this department, so this site does not assert one. That does not mean nobody has requested records from it. (Checked against a snapshot of OPRAmachine taken 12 July 2026.) See the methodology for how the match is made.

Questions and answers

What is a summary of Ocean County Prosecutor's Office's internal affairs and discipline record?

The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, a county prosecutor agency, named 3 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 4 investigations, a rate of 133.3 per 100 officers. That equals the Ocean County median of 133.3 and runs above the 107.5 median for prosecutor agencies, a comparison that can point to more misconduct or to more complete documentation of complaints. Of the 4 investigations detailed for 2025, 3 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the leading allegation category, with Domestic violence (Criminal) and Other Criminal Violation also listed. Allegations are not findings. Three major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2021 and 2023. Ocean Co Prosecutors Office received an F on the report card, at the 98th percentile among 21 peers in the group of all prosecutor agencies, a medium-confidence grade.

How many internal affairs investigations did Ocean County Prosecutor's Office report in 2025?

Ocean County Prosecutor's Office reported 4 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 3 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does Ocean County Prosecutor's Office have?

Ocean County Prosecutor's Office has 3 major discipline records in the Attorney General's 2020-2025 releases, of which 0 were terminations. These are final, adjudicated actions, not allegations.

How many officers does Ocean County Prosecutor's Office have?

Ocean County Prosecutor's Office reported 65 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 33.8% of them female. 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.

Sources

[1]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2430. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
[2]New Jersey Internal Affairs Officers, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Officer counts summed across every Ocean Co Prosecutors Office row. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
[3]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.
[4]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8537. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
[5]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8537. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
[6]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8537. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
[7]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 393. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
[8]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1413. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
[9]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1919. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
[10]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 894. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
[11]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2430. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
[12]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 Ocean Co Prosecutors Office row for 2025; row 1 is the header. ↩
[13]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 Ocean Co Prosecutors Office row for 2021. ↩
[14]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 Ocean Co Prosecutors Office row for 2022. ↩
[15]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 Ocean Co Prosecutors Office row for 2023. ↩
[16]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 Ocean Co Prosecutors Office row for 2024. ↩
[17]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 Ocean Co Prosecutors Office row for 2025. ↩
[18]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8537. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
[19]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. ↩
[20]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1844. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
[21]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1845. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
[22]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 2646. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩