The New Jersey State Police is being accused of seemingly turning a blind eye to racial profiling and other discriminatory policing against people of color on the roads.

A report from the state comptroller's office out this week finds law enforcement leaders were aware of data showing the unjust treatment but did nothing to meaningfully tackle it.

Echoing the findings of previous studies, well, after reviewing the report, Attorney General Matt Platkin called the findings deeply troubling.

But as our social justice writer Taylor Jung reports, it remains to be seen what, if any, action will be taken.

I recently spoke with Taylor about what comes next.

Taylor, good to see you.

So you looked into this report.

In what ways does it say the state police failed to stop discrimination?

Right.

So traffic stop data is actually publicly available.

And when the state police was faced with all this data that showed potential trends, they failed to consider implicit bias as one of the reasons for racial disparities and who was pulled over.

And they didn't put forth enough initiatives to prevent this from happening.

Now, state police actually do receive implicit bias training, but the state comptroller said that this wasn't enough.

And he also called measures that did exist to be performative.

A lot of this stems actually from a third party report that the attorney general commissioned last year, which showed that black and Latino drivers were more likely to be stopped and face arrest or also face force after traffic stops.

And so, again, the state police is faced with all this data.

The AG's office said that they told them to consider implicit bias as a reason for some of these trends.

But the comptroller said they didn't see this mentioned in any of the notes mentioned over five years regarding meetings over this data.

And the comptroller also said that he didn't receive all the documents he requested from the state or the AG's office and was told that that information was privileged.

I guess I'm wondering, though, how this could be the case when we get reports every year, Pretty lengthy reports at that from the state police, from the attorney general's office, showing the steps they've taken to make these reforms.

Yeah, that's a question that a lot of people are wondering, especially since racial profiling as a whole reason why we're here today and why some of these agencies exist.

So the state police were put under a federal consent decree from 1989 to 2009 following a DOJ lawsuit over racial profiling after troopers shot out a vehicle with young black and Latino men who are on their way to a basketball trial.

Now, following that consent decree, the law was passed that created an office under the attorney general to oversee the state police.

And it also directed the comptroller to reveal their work.

Now, since then, again, as you mentioned, the data has showed these racial disparities in traffic stops.

And a lot of people say it has to do with the culture and really need there needs to be more initiatives that dig under the root cause of a lot of these racial disparities that go beyond maybe what implicit bias training can provide.

And so we saw that the attorney general had a pretty strong reaction to this report.

What steps are they talking about taking, if any?

So for now, the comptroller directed the state police and the AG's office to create a corrective plan in the next 90 days.

But advocates are saying they really want more oversight, civilian oversight of police and more police accountability.

So that goes really just beyond the AG's office and the state police.

They're also calling on the legislature and the governor to support a police accountability bills that have been stalled in state government over the last several years.

Yeah, and of course, at a time when the accountability is has been fraught for quite a while now.

Taylor Jung for us, of course.

Her full report is on our website.

Taylor, thanks so much.

Thank you.