Bill Text: NJ A2695 | 2016-2017 | Regular Session | Introduced

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Bill Title: Requires DOC employees who recruit, interview, and hire corrections officers to have gang awareness training.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2016-02-08 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee [A2695 Detail]

Download: New_Jersey-2016-A2695-Introduced.html

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ASSEMBLY, No. 2695

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

217th LEGISLATURE

 

INTRODUCED FEBRUARY 8, 2016

 

 

Sponsored by:

Assemblyman  GORDON M. JOHNSON

District 37 (Bergen)

 

 

 

 

SYNOPSIS

     Requires DOC employees who recruit, interview, and hire corrections officers to have gang awareness training.

 

CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT

     As introduced.

  

An Act concerning the recruitment, interviewing, and hiring of corrections officers and supplementing chapter 4 of Title 30 of the Revised Statutes.

 

     Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

 

     1.    Every employee of the Department of Corrections who participates in any aspect of recruiting, interviewing, or hiring a corrections officer shall have successfully completed a training program in gang awareness approved by the department.

 

     2.    This act shall take effect on the first day of the seventh month after enactment, but the commissioner may take such anticipatory action prior to the effective date as needed to effectuate the act's provisions.

 

 

STATEMENT

 

     This bill would require employees of the Department of Corrections who are involved in the hiring process to have gang awareness training.

     Reportedly, gang members are attempting to procure corrections officer positions within this State's correctional facilities.  By infiltrating the system, they can provide special treatment to inmate gang members and gain access to confidential gang information collected by the department.  Because of civil service protections, it may prove difficult to remove a corrections officer affiliated with a gang.  Therefore, it is important for persons involved in hiring corrections officers to be trained in how to identify a gang member and recognize gang activity.

     This bill was prompted by recommendation 8 of the Assembly Prison Gang Violence Task Force which issued its final report on December 12, 2006.