TRENTON – The Senate today approved a bill sponsored by Senators Nia H. Gill and Ronald Rice to require law enforcement officials to record whether criminal incidents are related to street gangs when periodic police reports are sent 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. The bill passed 37-0 and now awaits action in the Assembly.
“Our focus needs to be on the problem of gangs in schools because 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 help 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.
“An awareness of gangs and their prevalence in our communities is a necessary first step in dealing with their impact on crime and their tactics of intimidation,” said Senator Rice, D-Essex.