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Department profile · Salem County

Salem City Police Department

Reported as: Salem City PDMunicipal police

Jurisdiction context

Civil service jurisdiction

Discipline at this department is governed by the Title 4A civil service framework, matched to Salem City 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.

In brief

Salem City Police Department is municipal police in Salem County. It named 9 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 13 investigations, a rate of 144.4 per 100 officers, above the Salem County median of 100 and the 125.9 municipal median. A rate that outpaces the medians can mean more misconduct or a department that documents more of the complaints it takes. None of the 13 investigations detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency led the allegation categories, with Demeanor and Differential Treatment next.

One major discipline record appears across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2023. Salem City received a D on the report card, at the 80th percentile among 171 peers in the 15-29 officers band, 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

9[1]

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

IA investigations, 2025

13[1]

Incidents, 2025

10[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

24[6]

58 years reported

24 sworn officers in 2025, up from 15 in 1960 (+60%).
Yearsworn officers
196015
1961not reported
1962not reported
1963not reported
1964not reported
1965not reported
1966not reported
1967not reported
196813
196919
1970not reported
197120
197219
197319
197417
197519
197615
197715
197817
197918
198016
198116
198217
198315
198416
198514
198616
198718
198817
198915
199018
199119
199217
199319
199419
199522
199623
199723
199823
199923
200023
200125
200229
200323
200423
200522
200622
200723
200824
200923
201022
201123
201222
201320
201418
201514
201617
201717
201819
201918
202017
202117
202222
202321
202424
202524

Civilian employees, 2025

2[7]

0.08 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

2[8]

8.3% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

4.46[9]

Municipal departments only

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

How Salem City 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, 15-29 officers (n=166)

Sworn officers: Municipal police, 15-29 officers
RangeAgencies
14–1617
16–1820
18–2027
20–2217
22–2426
24–2623
26–2817
28–3019

Salem City Police Department: 24 sworn officers: 68th percentile among Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=166).

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 23 active Salem City Police Department officers in the file.

Median officer salary

$88,563[2]

23 active officers

Median local school staff

$89,824

SALEM CITY BD OF ED, 129 TPAF members

Against the local district

0.99x

Median officer to median local school staff

Against the county

1.22x

Median officer to Salem 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 "SALEM CITY 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 Salem 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 Salem City Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
20213
202210
202310
202412
202513

Incidents

10 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Salem City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20213
20227
20236
20249
202510

Officers on IA rows

13 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Salem City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
202412
202513
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 Salem City Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
20220
202320
20248.333
20250

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 13 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Salem City Police Department, 2025
Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency4
Demeanor3
Differential Treatment3
Improper Arrest2
not provided1
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency · Demeanor · Differential Treatment · Improper Arrest

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Salem City Police Department, 2025
not provided7
Unfounded2
Exonerated2
Not Sustained1
Administratively Closed1

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

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

Differential Treatment

16 of 48

Differential Treatment allegations reported by Salem City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20222
20232
20248
20253

Demeanor

8 of 48

Demeanor allegations reported by Salem City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20222
20231
20241
20253

Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency

4 of 48

Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency allegations reported by Salem City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20230
20240
20254

Excessive Force

4 of 48

Excessive Force allegations reported by Salem City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20224
20230
20240
20250

Other (7 categories)

16 of 48

Other (7 categories) allegations reported by Salem City Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20222
20237
20243
20253

Against peers, 2025

How this grade was built →
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Salem City Police Department144.4
County median, municipal police (6)100.0
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.

13 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 24 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[21] = 54.2 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 D: Second-highest fifth

On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology

Combined standing
80th percentile of 171 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 Salem City Police Department's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.

Peer group: Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=171)

Discipline severity: Municipal police, 15-29 officers
RangeAgencies
0–50120
50–10024
100–15015
150–2007
200–2503
250–3002

Salem City Police Department: 25.641 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 56th percentile among Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=171).

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%

68th percentileof 171 peers

127.9 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%

56th percentileof 171 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%

93rd percentileof 171 peers

2.73 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 officers2025144.4137th of 445 municipal police
IA investigations202513172nd of 445 municipal police
IA incidents202510181st of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-20251184th of 282 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year4.4647th of 460 municipal police
Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-311.22x291st of 415 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present20193rd of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.
Yearmajor discipline records
20200
20210
20220
20231
20240
20250

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.

Major discipline records reported by Salem City Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2023Sean MayPatrolmanSuspended 180 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 Salem City, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 20 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 65 filed to Salem City are about something else and are not shown.

Police-related requests

20[3]

Identified by subject line, of 85 filed to Salem City

Most recent request

September 2025[3]

First recorded November 2017

Awaiting a response

12[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 Salem City (requests)
Awaiting agency response11
Requester reported success6
Delivery error1
Awaiting clarification1
Withdrawn by requester1

Recent requests

The 12 most recent police-related requests to Salem City, 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. 2025-09-05Delivery error
  2. 2025-07-22Awaiting clarification
  3. 2025-04-29Awaiting agency response
  4. 2025-02-19Awaiting agency response
  5. 2024-10-25Requester reported success
  6. 2024-10-25Awaiting agency response
  7. 2024-05-31Requester reported success
  8. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  9. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  10. 2023-07-28Awaiting agency response
  11. 2023-06-19Requester reported success
  12. 2023-04-26Requester reported success
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 Salem City 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 Salem City 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 Salem City Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Salem City Police Department is municipal police in Salem County. It named 9 officers in internal affairs cases in 2025 and reported 13 investigations, a rate of 144.4 per 100 officers, above the Salem County median of 100 and the 125.9 municipal median. A rate that outpaces the medians can mean more misconduct or a department that documents more of the complaints it takes. None of the 13 investigations detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency led the allegation categories, with Demeanor and Differential Treatment next. One major discipline record appears across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2023. Salem City received a D on the report card, at the 80th percentile among 171 peers in the 15-29 officers band, a medium-confidence grade.

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

Salem City Police Department reported 13 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 9 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does Salem City Police Department have?

Salem City 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.

How many officers does Salem City Police Department have?

Salem City Police Department reported 24 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 8.3% of them female. That is 4.46 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 Salem City Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?

The median pensionable salary for the 23 active Salem City Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $88,563. The median for the 129 TPAF-enrolled staff at SALEM CITY BD OF ED is $89,824, a ratio of 0.99x. Against the Salem County school-staff median the ratio is 1.22x. 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 2468. 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 Salem City. 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 Salem City 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 8562. 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 8562. 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 8562. 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 8562. 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 429. 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 1450. 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 1958. 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 933. 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 2468. 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 Salem City 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 Salem City 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 Salem City 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 Salem City 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 Salem City 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 Salem City PD row for 2025. ↩
  21. [21]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8562. 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 1868. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩