SENATE BUDGET AND APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 2348

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  DECEMBER 15, 2025

      The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee reports favorably and with committee amendments Senate Bill No. 2348.

      As amended, this bill requires the Attorney General (AG) to review and, if necessary, revise its use-of-force policy at least every even-numbered year or in such shorter time frame as needed.

      The bill requires that any revision to the Statewide use-of-force policy be in furtherance of the following core principles:

      (1)  respecting the sanctity of human life and serving the community;

      (2)  prioritizing other reasonable measures, including de-escalation, that must be attempted before resorting to the use of force;

      (3)  promoting the use of only objectively reasonable, necessary, and proportional force, including the use of deadly force only as a last resort; and

      (4)  articulating other duties attendant to the use of force, such as a law enforcement officer’s duty to intervene, to render medical assistance, and to report and review uses of force.

The bill also requires the policy to be transmitted to the chief or director of every municipal and county police department, every municipal and county prosecutor, and the Superintendent of State Police.

      The bill requires the AG, upon review of the policy as required by the bill, to hold three public hearings in order to receive feedback from the community.

      Moreover, the bill requires the AG to establish and maintain a procedure for reporting incidents involving use-of-force to the Department of Law and Public Safety, and to compile such information in a publicly accessible website.  Use-of-force incident information will be subject to the Open Public Records Act.

      The bill also requires the AG to issue and revise as needed guidelines and procedures applicable to law enforcement encounters involving a barricaded individual.  Further, the Police Training Commission is required to develop and include barricaded individual training for law enforcement officers.  The bill requires that any revisions to the guidelines are in furtherance of the following components and principles:

      (1)  situations involving barricaded individuals should be differentiated based on whether they involve a mental health crisis, with appropriate protocols like negotiation and non-lethal options tailored to the situation;

      (2)  initial responding officers are required to account for a barricaded individual’s primary language;

      (3)  law enforcement responses should incorporate crisis intervention, negotiation, and resolution techniques;

      (4)  supervisors and incident commanders are responsible for determining resolution tactics, factoring in input from tactical teams, negotiators, and mental health professionals;

      (5)  proper coordination between incident command systems and tactical teams, with crisis intervention officers responding to deescalate barricaded individual situations; and

      (6)  the appropriate role and use of mental health professionals, when available.

      The bill also clarifies that correctional police officers and investigators in the Department of Corrections have full police powers, as set out in N.J.S.A.2A:154-4.  The bill further provides that correctional police officers and investigators include all promotional ranks and positions responsible for overseeing correctional police officers and investigators so long as they have an underlying correctional police officer or investigator title.

      As amended and reported by the committee, Senate Bill No. 2348 is identical to Assembly Bill No. 4175 (2R), which was also amended and reported by the committee on this date.

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

      The committee amended the bill to:

      (1)  require that responding officers consider the barricaded individual’s primary language and if communication is difficult, take reasonable steps to establish communication via the person’s primary language;

      (2)  require that the use of force policy be updated every even numbered year;

      (3)  require any revision of use of force policy be in furtherance of the core principles enumerated in the bill;

      (4)  require the Attorney General to hold three public hearings, one in each of the northern, central, and southern regions of the State, when reviewing and revising the use of force policy;

      (5)  direct the Attorney General to establish and maintain a procedure for reporting of use of force incidents and to compile such information on a publicly accessible website;

      (6)  subject use of force data to the Open Public Records Act;

      (7)  require the Attorney General to establish guidelines and procedures for law enforcement responses to barricaded individuals;

      (8)  establish components and principles that the barricaded individual guidelines and procedures must address;

      (9)  require law enforcement officers receive training developed by the Police Training Commission on barricaded individuals;

      (10)  add a new section amending N.J.S.A.2A:154-4 to clarify that correctional police officers and investigators granted full police powers under the statute include all promotional ranks and positions responsible for overseeing correctional police officers and investigators so long as they have an underlying correctional police officer or investigator title; and

      (11)  change the Title and synopsis of the bill to reflect the provisions of the amendments.

FISCAL IMPACT:

      The Office of Legislative Services (OLS) determines that the bill would result in a one-time indeterminate expenditure increase by the Department of Law and Public Safety to review and update the State’s use of force policy in accordance with four core principles enumerated in the bill.  The department also could incur some indeterminate upfront costs to issue guidelines and procedures for law enforcement encounters with a barricaded individual.  Periodic costs would be incurred thereafter to update the policies as required.

      The OLS notes that the Office of the Attorney General issued a directive on August 22, 2024 that revised Statewide use of force policies as they relate to law enforcement responses to barricaded individuals.  As such, the provisions of the bill requiring that the department issue guidelines and procedures for law enforcement encounters involving a barricaded individual may not require any upfront costs to the department.  However, the office may experience a one-time cost to establish procedures to report the use of force to the department and annual costs to compile the information received in a publicly accessible website.

      The department would incur one-time indeterminate costs for the Police Training Commission to develop, or update, the basic training course curriculum to include training for officers and instructors on situations involving barricaded individuals.  Further periodic cost increases to State and local law enforcement may result from the intermittent review and updating of the Statewide use of force policy, course curriculum, instruction, and examination.