● Officers who used force less than the state average of 4.1 times from 2012-2016

● Officers who used force 5 to 12 times

● Officers who used force 13 to 20 times, or more than 3x of the state average

● Officers who used force 21+ times, or more than 5x the state average



This chart organizes all N.J. officers into columns based on the number of times they used force.

Most (95 percent) of officers who used force used it 1 to 12 times, or up to 3x the state average, from 2012-2016. They are the blues and the greens.

The small remaining group (5 percent) of officers, seen here in yellow and red, account for more than a quarter of all uses of force in the five-year period. They are the outliers.

The 253 officers who used force more than 20 times, seen here in red, make up 10 percent of all of uses of force. They are the extreme outliers.

Now let’s break it down by local police department. Each circle on this map represents one department, with each dot representing the officers in that department who used force. The larger the circle, the more total uses of force by that department. Click and drag to change the perspective on the map.

Camden, one of the most dangerous cities in the state, accounts for the most uses of force. Among the 523 officers who used force from 2012 to 2016, 15 of them are red, meaning they used force more than 5x the state average.

Atlantic City ranks second in total uses of force. Though the city has roughly 200 fewer officers who used force compared with Camden, 36 of them — or more than twice as many as Camden — used force more than 5x the state average.

It can also be telling to compare individual officers to their peers within their department. Most Lumberton officers who used force did so infrequently. But one officer, Paul Craig, used force more than 30 times, making up 37 percent of his entire department’s uses of force. He retired earlier this year.