New Jersey Assembly Bill 4656: NJ Community Review Boards

NJ 4656 - State Legislation County/Municipal CRBs

Assembly Community Development and Affairs Committee

Wednesday March 17, 2021

Submitted Written Testimony/Tyrone A Gaskins, MHS

Members of the Community Development and Affairs Committee and all others. It is my perspective, that historically the legislature and it’s 60+ year stonewalling to provide a thorough and efficient education in NJ is a nice, systemic, race driven example that comes to mind, of politicians and unions conspiring to prevent needed social change and the execution of state mandated precepts… and so it has been with police reform and transparency concerning police officers. And I am quoting here, “Despite their ubiquity, Civilian Review Boards (CRBs) are often seen as ineffective. This is not because CRBs are inherently valueless, but because police and politicians have often purposefully erected barriers to stop CRBs from carrying out meaningful oversight.” Some impediments include:

• police department and unions defying, obstructing, or undermining CRB

• past or present police employees staffing CRBs

• politicians compromising rather than sufficiently empowering CRBs

• municipalities inadequately funding CRBs so they cannot perform the full range of oversight necessary

• politicians creating CRBs that are not independent from police

• municipalities inadequately funding and staffing CRBs so that members are perceived as lacking professionalism or expertise

• municipalities not bestowing CRBs with necessary investigative and subpoena power

These and other barriers to effective external oversight of policing are often the result of advocacy from policing political machines, including police unions. NJs Governor, has sought to work with the AG Grewal to champion significant reforms to bring accountability and oversight, but two years in, Grewal’s office supported legal efforts by the Newark Fraternal Order of Police to block a 2016 local ordinance that empowers the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board to subpoena records and investigate individual officers. Grewal, who is not guaranteed independence from the governor on civil matters, sided with Newark’s police union in the fight, making sweeping legal arguments that could be used to shield officers across the state from civilian oversight. Political and union interference must be removed from CRB process. This testimony is asking the committee’s consideration of the following two points in response to the proposed legislation; here in the Assembly, and its sister document, in the Senate. There are others, but due to time constraints, I’d like to ask, if I am unable to finish, that I be permitted to submit my written testimony into the record:

1. Reinforcing the Infrastructure of the Board Member Selection Process - Creating a progressive, unobstructed, administratively balanced infrastructure, that supports and reinforces transparency within and for Civilian Review Boards, across the State, means the process must include random selection of review board members rather than Mayoral/County Executive Officer appointments; which I anticipate would be fraught with chicanery, legalese, political, union - and given the soft electoral protocols in our state, potential monetary influence. A random selection process goes much further to ensure that political and union influence are pared away from the Civilian Review Board process, investigations, and proceedings.

This could be accomplished, hypothetically, through the creation of a pool of candidates, electronically, anonymously vetted for qualifications in the proposed categories – through the submission of resumes and verification of identifying data; trained as outlined in the proposed legislation; and who would then be randomly selected via lottery across the assigned categories, to serve when the need arises for a civilian review board; this method would be conducted concurrently across all 21 NJ Counties to ensure the necessary pool or pools of candidates statewide – all candidates would remain eligible for selection for the number of years proposed for the terms of service.

This method would exorcise political and police union influence, and the ability of relationships and priorities, that are the bane of terms and alliances to sully the CRB process. It also undergirds the transparency of the selection against influence peddling, so saturated in the business of public decision making here in NJ and nationwide - and seemingly, written into the framework of this document. In my estimation independent Civilian Review Boards need an independent and random review board selection process – to do otherwise is to perpetuate the same problems Civilian Review Boards typically harbor and invites inefficiencies in the ability of CRBs to conduct investigative review robustly and effectively.

2. The State must fund Civilian Review Boards like the Legislative body means to produce progressive and positive outomes

In January 2008, nine lawsuits by Newark police officers against the City were settled, with the settlements totaling $1,696,503. In 2018, media commentators conducting public research estimated police wrongdoing had cost New Jersey Taxpayers $42 Million over 10 years. NY is over half a billion dollars per year in police settlements. But the legislation is proposing $600,000 across the state with this legislation to fund CRBs.

There are different options for ensuring a CRB has enough funding to fulfill its mission of police accountability and I don’t have time to cover them here nor have I researched them extensively; but the weaknesses in the different models I was able to examine briefly for this testimony - is they were tied to local municipality and County funding and that funding would be determined by these same entities. The State’s efforts, through this legislation, needs to ensure that funding for County and Municipal CRBs are independent of municipal and county budget determinations and ensuresdedicated resources for the rollout of CRBs across NJ; that they are funded by a separate budget that is not controlled by the police departments, Mayors or County Executives. This will ensure unfettered funding for CRBs to employ staff, train volunteers, have the capacity to receive and review all citizen complaints; and also have the resources to provide big-picture review and feedback on policing practices and policies in the municipality. With that said, $600,000 is a slap in the face to any serious effort to make CRBs effective against the massive resources that will be plied against their investigative efforts. That number, across 26 counties equates to $23,076 per county for NJs 521 municipalities. I’d really like to suggest - feigning being facetious, that the Commission and the Budget Office, STOP PLAYIN’; Go back to the drawing board on funding for this legislation and come up with number that will secure the ability of NJ CRBs to be effective in their investigations, subpoena authority, infrastructure and ability to provide comprehensive, rigorous and legally defensible conclusions to their efforts; I would say the floor is $10,000,000.

Thanks to the leadership for requesting public input into the Committee’s Civilian Review Board processes under consideration. Particularly, thanks to Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson and other sponsors, for extending the invitation and for her advocacy on the matters concerning police engagement and over-reach in urban communities here NJ. Also, I want to acknowledge the work of Senators Rice and Turner who are advancing a copy of this legislation in the Senate as well. I want to acknowledge the 15th, and their legitimate and authentic efforts to represent their different constituencies. And when they are doing something right- we in the counter constituency, if you will - have an obligation to let them know. Thank you.