Department profile · Union County
Union County Sheriff's Office
Reported as: Union Co Sheriffs OfficeCounty sheriff
Jurisdiction context
Civil service jurisdiction
Discipline at this department is governed by the Title 4A civil service framework, matched to Union County 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
The Union County Sheriff's Office logged 48 internal affairs investigations in 2025 and 34 officers named in those cases. Its rate of 141.2 per 100 officers matched the county median of 141.2 and ran above the 115.2 median for sheriff agencies statewide, which can reflect more misconduct or a stronger habit of documenting complaints. Twenty-one of the 48 investigations detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. Demeanor accounted for 16 of the cases, ahead of Insubordination/Disobeying An Order and Neglect of Duty.
Five major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2022, 2023 and 2025, including two terminations. The office received a C on the report card, the 40th percentile among 21 peers across all sheriff agencies, a high-confidence grade.
Written by this site strictly from the figures on this page; every number is cited below.
Officers named in IA cases, 2025
34[1]
Distinct officers in that year's IA investigations, not total staffing
IA investigations, 2025
48[1]
Incidents, 2025
37[1]
Major discipline records
5
All years, 2020-2025
Staffing
Staffing data not available. The FBI's national staffing census (LEE) does not separately track county corrections facilities, sheriff's offices, or other county agencies in New Jersey -- only a single statewide Department of Corrections figure exists in that data. See the methodology for what FBI staffing data does and does not cover.
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
| Category | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 27 |
| 2022 | 34 |
| 2023 | 37 |
| 2024 | 66 |
| 2025 | 48 |
Incidents
37 in 2025
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 27 |
| 2022 | 29 |
| 2023 | 34 |
| 2024 | 62 |
| 2025 | 37 |
Officers on IA rows
48 in 2025
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | not reported |
| 2022 | not reported |
| 2023 | not reported |
| 2024 | 64 |
| 2025 | 48 |
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
| Year | share of total |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 41.176 |
| 2023 | 56.757 |
| 2024 | 43.939 |
| 2025 | 43.75 |
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 48 officers involved.
Most serious allegation
| Demeanor | 16 |
|---|---|
| Insubordination/Disobeying An Order | 6 |
| Neglect of Duty | 6 |
| Other Departmental Rule Violation | 5 |
| Attendance Issues | 4 |
| Improper Entry | 4 |
| Differential Treatment | 2 |
| Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency | 1 |
Statewide category pages: Demeanor · Insubordination/Disobeying An Order · Neglect of Duty · Other Departmental Rule Violation · Attendance Issues · Improper Entry · Differential Treatment · Conduct Unbecoming/Discredit To The Agency
Internal disposition
| Sustained | 21 |
|---|---|
| Not Sustained | 10 |
| not provided | 8 |
| Unfounded | 6 |
| Exonerated | 3 |
Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025
Demeanor
51 of 212
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 5 |
| 2022 | 12 |
| 2023 | 7 |
| 2024 | 11 |
| 2025 | 16 |
Other Departmental Rule Violation
38 of 212
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 18 |
| 2022 | 2 |
| 2023 | 4 |
| 2024 | 9 |
| 2025 | 5 |
Neglect of Duty
23 of 212
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 1 |
| 2023 | 4 |
| 2024 | 12 |
| 2025 | 6 |
Attendance Issues
15 of 212
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2 |
| 2023 | 5 |
| 2024 | 4 |
| 2025 | 4 |
Other (17 categories)
85 of 212
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 4 |
| 2022 | 17 |
| 2023 | 17 |
| 2024 | 30 |
| 2025 | 17 |
Against peers, 2025
How this grade was built →| Union County Sheriff's Office | 141.2 |
|---|---|
| County median, county sheriff (1) | 141.2 |
| NJ median, county sheriff (20) | 115.2 |
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.
Report card
Grade C: Middle fifth of peers
On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology
- Combined standing
- 40th percentile of 21 peers
- Confidence
- High confidence
Where this agency falls among its peers
The actual spread of discipline severity across Union County Sheriff's Office's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.
Peer group: County sheriff, all sheriff agencies (n=21)
| Range | Agencies |
|---|---|
| 0–50 | 6 |
| 50–100 | 8 |
| 100–150 | 6 |
| 150–200 | 0 |
| 200–250 | 1 |
Union County Sheriff's Office: 39.326 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 26th percentile among County sheriff, all sheriff 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%
117.5 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%
39.3 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%
1.82 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
| Metric | Value | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| IA per 100 investigated officers2025 | 141.2 | 5th of 20 county sheriff |
| IA investigations2025 | 48 | 5th of 20 county sheriff |
| IA incidents2025 | 37 | 6th of 20 county sheriff |
| Major discipline2020-2025 | 5 | 10th of 17 county sheriff |
| Terminations2020-2025 | 2 | 6th of 12 county sheriff |
| OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present | 25 | 6th of 8 county sheriff |
Major discipline records
| Year | major discipline records |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 1 |
| 2023 | 1 |
| 2024 | 0 |
| 2025 | 3 |
3 major discipline records in 2025, up from 0 in 2020.
Every name links to the officer's record page with the agency's full synopsis and citation.
Fatal encounters recorded involving this agency
From the independent Fatal Encounters dataset, 2000-2021
In brief (written by this site from the records below)
Two records in the Fatal Encounters dataset name the Union County Sheriff's Office, one from 2004 and one from 2005. The dataset's own as-recorded force label is Gunshot in both. Fatal Encounters was an independent, crowdsourced journalism project that documented deaths occurring during police encounters of any kind, including vehicle pursuits, medical emergencies, and suicides in police presence. A record is not a finding of fault, and it does not say police caused the death. The project stopped collecting in December 2021, so the dataset is frozen at that point.
Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced dataset that documented deaths during police encounters nationwide from 2000 until its collection ended in December 2021.[2] It records all deaths that occurred during a police encounter of any kind: vehicle pursuits, suicides in police presence, and medical emergencies are included alongside uses of force. A record appears here because Union County Sheriff's Officeis named in the record's as-reported agency field. A listing is not a misconduct finding, and it is not connected to the Attorney General discipline records above. See the methodology. Each record links to its own page with the full as-reported details.
- Michael Johnson
March 29, 2005 · Union · Highest level of force as recorded: Gunshot
- Juan Correa Arroyo
April 8, 2004 · Newark · Highest level of force as recorded: Gunshot
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.
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.
| Awaiting agency response | 13 |
|---|---|
| Requester reported success | 4 |
| Agency said records not held | 3 |
| Requester reported partial success | 2 |
| Awaiting clarification | 2 |
| Request refused | 1 |
Recent requests
The 12 most recent requests to Union County Sheriff's Office, 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.
- 2026-02-12Awaiting agency response
- 2025-10-23Awaiting agency response
- 2025-09-18Awaiting agency response
- 2025-09-10Awaiting agency response
- 2025-07-23Requester reported partial success
- 2025-05-07Agency said records not held
- 2024-11-20Awaiting agency response
- 2024-10-25Awaiting agency response
- 2024-09-28Requester reported partial success
- 2024-06-19Requester reported success
- 2024-04-12Awaiting clarification
- 2024-04-11Awaiting 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.
A member of the public requested: “Arson report #26-004445. Please i need the report for this case number, Thank you”
2026-02-12 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Spending”
2025-10-23 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Summary and Conclusion report for IA-2025-19”
2025-09-18 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Axon/Taser International Invoices/ Purchase Orders”
2025-09-10 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Salary information for Corrections Officers and Superiors”
2025-07-23 · Requester reported partial success
A member of the public requested: “Correctional Request”
2025-05-07 · Agency said records not held
A member of the public requested: “CAD Detail Reports with Officer narratives from 11/08/2024 to 11/15/2024”
2024-11-20 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Arrest reports of incident case #2023-004896”
2024-10-25 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Arrest reports of incident case #2023-003983”
2024-09-28 · Requester reported partial success
A member of the public requested: “Policy and Procedure”
2024-06-19 · Requester reported success
A member of the public requested: “Arrest reports of incident case # 22019795”
2024-04-12 · Awaiting clarification
A member of the public requested: “Arrest reports of incident case # 2022-22190”
2024-04-11 · Awaiting agency response
File your own records request
Anyone can request records from this department 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 Union County Sheriff's Office 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 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 Union County Sheriff's Office's internal affairs and discipline record?
The Union County Sheriff's Office logged 48 internal affairs investigations in 2025 and 34 officers named in those cases. Its rate of 141.2 per 100 officers matched the county median of 141.2 and ran above the 115.2 median for sheriff agencies statewide, which can reflect more misconduct or a stronger habit of documenting complaints. Twenty-one of the 48 investigations detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. Demeanor accounted for 16 of the cases, ahead of Insubordination/Disobeying An Order and Neglect of Duty. Five major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2022, 2023 and 2025, including two terminations. The office received a C on the report card, the 40th percentile among 21 peers across all sheriff agencies, a high-confidence grade.
How many internal affairs investigations did Union County Sheriff's Office report in 2025?
Union County Sheriff's Office reported 48 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 34 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.
How many major discipline records does Union County Sheriff's Office have?
Union County Sheriff's Office has 5 major discipline records in the Attorney General's 2020-2025 releases, of which 2 were terminations. These are final, adjudicated actions, not allegations.
How many deaths during police encounters are recorded for Union County Sheriff's Office?
The independent Fatal Encounters dataset contains 2 records naming Union County Sheriff's Office, from 2004 through 2005. Fatal Encounters is a crowdsourced journalism project, not a government source, and it documented deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind. Each record links to a page showing it exactly as the project recorded it.
Sources
- [1]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2542. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [2]Fatal Encounters, New Jersey subset. Fatal Encounters (fatalencounters.org). Fatal Encounters national dataset (2000-2021); collection ended December 2021. Retrieved 2026-07-10. https://fatalencounters.org/ ↩
- [3]Records-request activity for Union County Sheriff's Office. 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]New Jersey Internal Affairs Officers, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Officer counts summed across every Union Co Sheriffs Office row. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [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]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 495. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [7]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1518. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [8]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2024. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [9]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1003. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [10]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2542. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [11]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 Union Co Sheriffs Office row for 2025; row 1 is the header. ↩
- [12]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 Union Co Sheriffs Office row for 2021. ↩
- [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 Union Co Sheriffs Office row for 2022. ↩
- [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 Union Co Sheriffs Office row for 2023. ↩
- [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 Union Co Sheriffs Office row for 2024. ↩
- [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 Union Co Sheriffs Office row for 2025. ↩
- [17]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. ↩
- [18]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 812. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
- [19]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 813. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
- [20]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 814. 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 1997. 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 2400. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩