CJ Griffin Quoted in northjersey.com on Need to Release 2021 Civilian Police Complaint Statistics

CJ Griffin, Director of the Justice Gary S. Stein Public Interest Center at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, was quoted in the northjersey.com article “NJ Attorney General’s Office dropped stats for civilian complaints against cops in 2021.” The article discusses the lack of accountability resulting from the Attorney General’s Office decision to change the form for the annual Internal Affairs reports, which eliminated the column that lists the number of civilian complaints about matters such as excessive force, improper arrests, improper searches and officers’ demeanor. In response to questions from the Paterson Press, the Attorney General’s Office agreed to revise the annual report forms for 2022 and again make such information public, but has not yet agreed to release such additional data for 2021.

CJ Griffin, a lawyer who is one of New Jersey’s leading advocates for the disclosure of public documents, said the Attorney General’s Office ought to release reports with the 2021 civilian complaint statistics. Otherwise, she said, there would be a “permanent hole” in the data.

“This glitch is a major problem that must be resolved,” said Griffin, who worked on the lawsuit that produced a New Jersey Supreme Court decision permitting the public release of disciplined cops’ names.

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