Jersey City leaders say new reforms announced on Thursday will make the city’s police department more effective, more transparent and more deserving of community trust.
The changes are driven by acting Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose, who took over the department shortly after Mayor James Solomon’s inauguration this year. Ambrose said residents, officers and city leaders consistently told him the Jersey City Police Department lacked technology, transparency and accountability.
“ The Stone Age of the Jersey City Police Department is moving, starting today,” Ambrose said during a press conference at the city’s public safety headquarters on Thursday. “We are doing things differently. We’re changing the way we do business.”
The most visible change is a policy ending the department’s use of fixed posts, the practice of having patrol officers observe activity from single locations through their shifts. The practice has been criticized for instilling a sense of occupation in the community and inhibiting officers’ abilities to do their jobs.
“ Officers will be deployed on mobile patrols with community engagement, and their deployment will be driven by data,” Solomon said. “It’ll be driven by where they can keep residents safest the most.”
Officers formerly assigned to fixed posts will be reassigned to a new community engagement unit. Multiple Jersey City councilmembers praised the end of the fixed post policy.
“Get them out of the fixed post, have them walk around, visit businesses. Have kids look up to them like we used to do when we were children,” Councilmember Michael Griffin said.
The department will also launch JC IMPACT, a metrics system that will collect and publicize law enforcement data, including data related to response times, violent crime clearance rates, evidence processing times, traffic crash data and GPS tracking of patrol vehicles.
“ We’re measuring results and impacts on our residents, and we’re doing more than that. We’re going to hold all of ourselves accountable,” Solomon said.
Ambrose said Jersey City police had been collecting some crime data as required by state and federal laws, but not nearly as much as some other departments. And there was no effort to track performance metrics that can show where police are succeeding and where they’re failing, he said.
Jersey City officials described the system as similar to Compstat, a tracking system that originated with the NYPD in the 1990s and is used in several major cities. Ambrose launched Newark’s version of Compstat while he served as that city’s public safety director.
He said that the effort reduced crime and strengthened community trust.
“ If you want to have intelligence-led policing, you have to have data,” Ambrose said. “Right now, Jersey City doesn’t have that.”
The department will create new citywide units dedicated to robbery and domestic violence, respectively. Ambrose said those crimes are currently handled within the districts. Ambrose said the department handles about 4,000 domestic violence cases each year.
“ The detectives now do a great job, but that unit should be dedicated just for the victims, with services available to them,” Ambrose said.
Ambrose also said the department would seek new grant funding to equip officers with Tasers.
“ The second-largest police department in the state does not have tasers,” Ambrose said. “That’s shameful.”
Earlier this year, Solomon ordered the re-establishment of a traffic enforcement division in the department. Ambrose said Thursday the unit is expected to be operating by May 1. It will be assigned motorcycles that have been in storage, as well as an additional 10 motorcycles that will be purchased using money collected through forfeiture.
The reforms come as Jersey City faces a historic budget crisis. Solomon’s office said the new changes would all be funded through the existing public safety budget.
The Jersey City POBA, the city’s police union, had yet to return a request for comment on Thursday.