Short answer: you can't.
An investigation by USA Today and northjersey.com revealed that at both the state and county levels, there is very little/no oversight for the usage of no-knock warrants in this state. There's very little documentation of when and how often these warrants are used, by which agencies they're being used by, or even what crimes have historically warranted their use.
That's pretty problematic for a couple reasons:
Firstly, when it comes to police accountability, documentation and records are essential. It's incredibly difficult for the public to track the actions of the police and call them out for the actions they commit against civilians if those records simply don't exist. Transparency should be part of police reform, especially when we're tracking the use of a warrant that has constitutional and legal issues around it.
Secondly, it makes it really hard to pull data supporting a ban for the warrants. Two NJ lawmakers have proposed legislation to ban no-knock warrants in the state (Woohoo!), but without data that shows why they need to go, it makes difficult to propel it forward towards passage.
This isn't the first time police records have been cloaked in ambiguity, but let's make it the last. We need to make sure this legislation (among others) passes, in this state and in others, in our fight for police reform and justice.
Thank you so much to all of you for signing this petition! Please continue to pass it on to other NJ residents.
This is the link to the full & free article covering the information provided in this update:
If you have a northjersey.com membership, feel free to look at their article here: