The state is allocating $60 million for departments to pay for the body
cameras. Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law last year requiring that officers wear
body cameras, and with the funds, officers should have them by June.
It isn't the only change coming to the department. The state attorney
general has also launched a public website called a "use of force
dashboard" to track every case where police use force.
Former Paterson police
officer, Dalton Price, who's now the president
of a Black law enforcement group, supports the moves
toward transparency.
"In the climate that we're living in, I can say that a lot of what
we see on video, it looks bad and a lot of it looks bad because it is bad,” says
Price.
Another change coming that Price will be a part of is recruiting state
police officers. It comes as lawmakers are pushing departments to have minority
hiring programs to better represent the communities they are policing.