NEW YORK, NY December 09, 2007 —New Jersey governor Corzine says he's in favor of ending federal oversight of the State Police. The monitoring began in 1999 amid allegations of widespread racial profiling by troopers. WNYC's Bob Hennelly reports.

REPORTER: Governor Corzine's decision affirms findings by a panel of civil rights and law enforcement experts he created, charged with examining progress in the effort to eliminate racial profiling. While the panel concluded the state police had made substantial progress it called for continued external monitoring and for increased scrutiny of the state's more than 470 local police departments.

The panel wants local agencies to begin to collect data on the racial breakdown of the motorists they stop and the justifications for the stops. They also want to see local police invest in the installation of dashboard video cameras in local police cruisers.

For WNYC, I’m Bob Hennelly