TRENTON – The Senate Law, Public Safety and Veterans Affairs Committee today released a bill sponsored by Senator Nia H. Gill to require law enforcement officials to record whether criminal incidents are related to street gangs when they make their periodic reports to the State Attorney General.
The bill, S-2125, also would require that fingerprint records include a designation as to whether a crime was gang related. Approved without objection, the bill now awaits action before the full Senate.
“We should be focusing our attention on dealing with the problems of gangs in schools because the children represent our best hope of overcoming the pervasive culture of violence advanced by street gangs,” said Senator Gill, D-Essex and Passaic. “Recording criminal incidents as gang related will acknowledge the extent of our problem with gangs in our communities and the finger-printing will help us track their members.”
The bill would require all county and local police authorities to include information related to criminal street gang activities in their quarterly reports to the Attorney General required under the New Jersey Uniform Crime Reporting System.