N.J. State Police Diversity Efforts Fall Short

When the 150th New Jersey State Police class graduates on Friday, nearly a third will be minorities, a victory for recruitment efforts that have cost New Jersey millions of dollars and years of effort. But the state's largest law enforcement agency is still struggling to hire African-Americans. State Police figures show Hispanic enlistment is increasing while the number of black troopers falls, a mixed report card after decades of lawsuits and court agreements designed to create a police force more representative of New Jersey's increasingly diverse population. Nine years after the State Police entered a consent agreement with the NAACP to step up minority recruitment, about eight out of every 10 troopers are white men. In that time, the percentage of Hispanics on the force nearly doubled to 8.4 percent, but African-Americans dropped from 8.2 percent to 6.7 percent. Female enlistment rose from about 3 percent to 4 percent. Read the full article from the Statehouse Bureau here.