Plan depends on squeezing more money out of the next state budget
New Jersey State Police troopers are shown graduating in this 2009 file photo. The department has come under criticism from the state chapter of the NAACP for not having enough black troopers in this year's recruit class.TRENTON — The state Attorney General’s Office Thursday outlined steps it plans to consider to recruit more blacks into the New Jersey State Police, but said many of them depend on squeezing more money out of the next state budget.
In response, a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said the organization plans to formally express its displeasure that the office would not commit to putting more money toward recruitment.
"They’re basically saying if we can do a class without advertising again we will," said David Rose, who represents the national civil rights organization. "I think we have to respond and I think we will."
The Attorney General’s recruitment plan, included in a letter to the NAACP sent Monday, comes about three weeks after the two sides met to discuss why the latest class of 123 State Police recruits includes just five black candidates.
The NAACP agreed after the meeting to put off plans for legal action to combat the declining level of black troopers, which is already lower than when the State Police emerged from federal oversight for discriminatory hiring in 1992.
In the years since a 2000 court agreement between the state and the NAACP intended to improve minority recruitment, the percentage of black troopers has slipped while other minorities, particularly Hispanics, have gained ground.
Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for Attorney General Paula Dow, said the office will request more money for recruitment advertising in its next budget, but could not guarantee that the request would be granted.
"The likelihood of getting additional dollars for an ad campaign during a budget crisis is not the greatest," Loriquet said. "We would love to be like a Coca-Cola and run major ads, but we have to face reality."
In addition to attracting more black candidates, the NAACP is also concerned about the screening process for new troopers. The organization says that background checks flunk blacks at disproportionately high rates compared to other minorities.
The Attorney General’s office said in its letter that the State Police will conduct a pre-screening process to weed out those who might fail a background check, which is typically done at the end of the screening process.
The office also said it plans to bolster training for those who conduct the background checks. The checks include both automatic disqualifications — like a drug conviction — as well as a subjective review of many smaller elements of candidate’s past — like a credit history — that are considered on a case-by-case basis.
Among the other points of the plan, the Attorney General’s Office said it would try to explain the qualifications of the job more clearly at the beginning of the process, and would consider the pool of recently laid off municipal police officers for possibly priority consideration in future classes.
Related coverage:
• State, NAACP agree to focus on future State Police recruitment
• Report shows progress in eliminating racial profiling by N.J. State Police
• NAACP vows to challenge N.J. State Police over low black representation in new recruit class