Police & Law Enforcement

Police officers wield enormous power to detain, search, arrest, and use force. Yet too often, officers are not held accountable for misconduct when they abuse their power – and, most often, marginalized community members bear the brunt of abusive tactics. Police departments are shrouded in near-total secrecy, with basic information about how they work and what they have done hidden from public view. Police presence in schools have led to disproportionate contact with students of color and punitive responsive with long-term harmful impacts. Correctional police officers often evade accountability for abuses in prisons and jails.

The ACLU-NJ is committed to limiting the ability of law enforcement to conduct harmful, invasive searches and to use unnecessary force. The ACLU-NJ works to hold law enforcement accountable to community members, and to make departments more transparent.