A record number of New Jersey law-enforcement officers received major discipline in 2025 for violating rules while either on or off duty, according to the state Attorney General’s Office.
In all, 654 officers were subject to sanctions including termination, loss of rank and suspension for five or more days. That was 20% more officers than in 2024 and 68% more than in 2021, the first full year of such reporting.
Behavior subject to major discipline includes “discriminatory conduct, filing a false report, intentionally performing an improper search, applying excessive force, being untruthful, intentionally mishandling or destroying evidence and committing domestic violence,” according to the Offices of Justice Data and Public Integrity and Accountability under Attorney General Jennifer Davenport.
One officer can have multiple disciplinary actions. In 2025, such actions totaled 817. That was a 27% more than in 2024 and more than double the 2021 figure.
Details of the incidents are in a 560-page report made public Friday.. State, county, local, sheriff’s, corrections and college campus law-enforcement agencies are among those that submit the data. The final statistics are limited to discipline whose appeals have been exhausted.
Then-Attorney General Gurbir Grewal ordered such annual reviews in 2020, as the George Floyd protests unleashed national furor about police brutality and a lack of transparency and accountability.
Open-records advocates had argued that New Jersey’s longtime practice of shielding such officers put communities at risk. Grewal said his order lifted “the cloak of secrecy” and demonstrated “that the vast majority of law-enforcement officers work hard and play by the rules.”
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