Most police officers live outside of the communities where they work – NJ TODAY
Protests that have swept the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death have prompted calls to limit police funding, hold officers accountable for dangerous restraints — and even establish residency requirements within the communities where they work.
Some activists want officers to be required to live in the cities they patrol, arguing it will make officers more culturally competent, diversify police forces and improve community relations.
“It’s a plus if we have officers who live in the city, they grew up in the city, they have a stake in the city because it’s home,” said Kenyatta Johnson, a member of Philadelphia’s City Council, which introduced a bill to restore that city’s police residency requirement. “It goes a long way to building community trust.”
Similar measures have been brewing in the New Jersey Legislature.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka vigorously argued before the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee for stronger and more effective public safety strategies, including passage of A-3386, legislation sponsored by Assemblyman John McKeon.
A-3386 would permit a municipality to adopt an ordinance prohibiting an applicant from obtaining employment with the municipal police department, paid fire department, or part-paid fire department unless the applicant agrees to remain a resident of the municipality for the first five years of employment.
McKeon’s bill would permit municipal, county, and regional police and fire forces to establish five-year residency requirements for police officers and firefighters; and allows exceptions to requirements under certain circumstances.
Under his bill, county and regional police and fire forces would also have the power to institute a residency requirement. In any municipality with such an ordinance, the applicant would have six months from the date the applicant begins their official duties, following all requisite training, to relocate to the municipality, county, or region served by the force.
“People are being killed,” said Baraka, a longtime advocate of residency requirements, who stepped up his efforts in the aftermath of the Minnesota in-police-custody killing of George Floyd. “Most of our residents want police officers. What they don’t want are their children shot to death for playing with water pistols or choked to death for selling cigarettes.”
“Residency requirements create a greater social symmetry between employees and residents,” said Baraka. “Public servants contribute to the local tax base… and represent communty interests in their agencies.” Newark has a police force composed of 70% black and brown officers, said Baraka. But required residency would help, not only in his city, but everywhere, he argued.
Senator Ronald L. Rice, a Newark resident and former city police detective who is a member of the Law and Public Safety Committee, said the establishment frequently waters down the legislation he proposes to address unequal justice.
“We cannot allow Trenton to modify justice for people of color,” said Rice. “White police officers used to live in the city. Senator [Joe] Cryan can tell you, his father was the sheriff of Essex County.”
“Police unions don’t want cops to live in cities, which doesn’t make any sense to me when we’re talking about perspective,” said Rice. “There are a handful of people who are standing in the way of us getting this right.”
Cryan is one of those obstructionists.
Cryan was the only Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee who refused to support S-685, which would permit a municipality to adopt an ordinance prohibiting an applicant from obtaining employment with the municipal police department, paid fire department, or part-paid fire department unless the applicant agrees to residency within the municipality for the first five years of his or her employment.
“The communities that need the most protection – police don’t live there,” said Senate President Steve Sweeney, who added that Senator Brian P. Stack told him that many Union City police officers live in Monmouth and Union counties.
“We need them in our urban communities,” said Sweeney. “We need our public safety people to live in the communities.”
Under both bills, county and regional police and fire forces could be subject to a residency requirement.
New Jersey Police Benevolent Association President Pat Colligan spoke in opposition to the measure.
“Here we go again,” said Colligan. “Why not state employees, why not the rest of town employees?”
There are laws that require some government workers to reside in the jurisdictions where they are employed.
Colligan reminded lawmakers former Republican Governor Chris Christie vetoed a law enforcement residency bill.
“This bill will not solve the problem,” said Sean Lavin executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. “The cities, the towns, are unable to fulfill their demands and get diversity into the requirements.”
Lavin, a former Mercer County Sheriff’s Officer, was indicted in May 2014 on charges of official misconduct and tampering of public records for pepper-spraying a handcuffed woman in Trenton but he remains the top employee of the FOP police union.
Senator M. Teresa Ruiz is a sponsor of the bill who pushed back strenuously, arguing in favor of the legislation as a way of citing first responders in communities of need. Senator Sandra Cunningham, widow of the late Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham, who was a former beat cop, also championed the bill.
“We need you to live with us,” Cunningham told Colligan and Lavin. “Show us the respect the dignity we know you have. Live in our cities, because you can only make it a better place.”
All the Democrats on the committee voted to advance the legislation, with the exception of Senator Joe Cryan, who joined Republicans by refusing to support the residency requirements for police.
This is not just a local problem.
Commissioner Jim Holley questioned how far away nonresident officers live and whether the department would be able to respond to an emergency mobilization in a timely manner, since nearly 75 percent of Detroit’s police officers, do not live in the city they serve.
Fewer than 17 percent of Grand Rapids police officers live in the city they serve.
“Police unions are the major stumbling block against law enforcement reform,’’ said Kalfani Ture, a former police officer in Georgia who now teaches criminal justice at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. “The police union, in fact, institutionalizes the culture of maybe being a bad cop because it (represents) the status quo.’’
Ture offered several examples of how police unions shield members from accountability for their actions, including coaching officers involved in use-of-force incidents on how to write favorable reports and having them collaborate to present a narrative that exonerates them from blame and places fault on the suspect.
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