Education Senate Committee Advances Bill Requiring Anti-Choking Devices in Schools - On March 17th, the Senate Education Committee unanimously voted to advance Bill S908, which would require all public and private schools to purchase and maintain FDA-registered portable anti-choking devices in certain areas, such as cafeterias and nurses’ offices. The state would reimburse states for [...]
By Yonaira Rivera and Vivek Singh In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, people turned to search engines like Google for information. A recent study, "Language disparities in pandemic information: Autocomplete analysis of COVID-19 searches in New York" by Singh et al., highlights how these autocompletes can shape public perception and amplify health disparities. [...]
By Elizabeth Griffiths, Heather L. Scheuerman, and Ryan Brown This ongoing project involves the collecting and coding of all appellate decisions in which New Jersey’s higher courts conceded prosecutorial misconduct between 2010 and 2015. Over this five-year period, hundreds of appeals brought before either the Superior Court Appellate Division or the Supreme Court of [...]
Education Assembly Committee Advances Bill Limiting School Cell Phone Use - On March 10th, the Assembly Education Committee unanimously advanced Bill S3695, requiring the Department of Education to develop guidelines for restricting school cell phone and social media use. School districts would then be required to adopt policies consistent with state guidelines. Supporters argued the [...]
By Hannah Younes, Rebecca Levitsky, Robert B. Noland Traffic safety is a critical concern in New Jersey where annual traffic crashes typically exceed 200,000, according to the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), with many of them resulting in non-fatal injuries that have lifelong impacts on victims. Currently, this data is not easily accessible. [...]
By Will Irving A little over a year ago, we reviewed the latest data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey showing that in 2022 New Jersey had the highest median income in the country, coupled with housing costs also among the nation’s highest. Here we revisit these indicators and review the 2023 data [...]
Public Administration Bill Redesigning Primary Election Ballots Becomes Law - On March 6th, Governor Phil Murphy signed Bill A5116 (P.L.2025, c.32.) into law, requiring the use of office-block ballots and eliminating the previous county line format, which a federal judge ruled unconstitutional in March 2024. While many advocacy groups praised the end of the county [...]
The Daily Targum published an article discussing a census of potential affordable housing locations for older adults in New Jersey, research which is currently being conducted by the New Jersey State Policy Lab and the Rutgers Hub for Aging Collaboration.
By Ben Justice and Ra’Zulu Ukawabutu Developing a policy for internet use in state prisons might appear to be a matter for prison administrators and state officials alone; however, internet access for imprisoned people entails a surprisingly wide body of constitutional law at the federal level as well, balancing the rights of prisoners and [...]
NJSPL Research Affiliate Ojobo Agbo Eje was interviewed by the Nigerian Tribune and discussed his ongoing research in data science and artificial intelligence.
