Asbury Park Equity Committee Recommends Citizen Review Board

ASBURY PARK – In a presentation at last Wednesday’s council meeting, the Asbury Park Equality Committee recommended that the town council create a civilian review board to establish transparency and accountability between the Asbury Park Police Department and the community.

The Asbury Park Equity Committee was formed last fall to review the APPD’s enforcement and discrimination policies and procedures and determine their effectiveness. After six months of bi-weekly meetings and three meetings with the public, the APEC came up with the recommendation to create a citizen review board.

“The most consistent and frequent recommendation raised to the Committee was to explore the creation and establishment of some type of oversight committee or review board to establish transparency and accountability regarding issues of misconduct within the police force,” the report to the council states.

“There have been various suggestions as to the framework of a potential review board as well as their accountabilities and scope of authority. The recommendation is for the City Council to appoint and empower an independent committee made up of a cross-section of the community for a certain period of time to explore, research, and to develop a framework for an Asbury Park Review Board or Committee.”

The committee’s report also recommends that there should be a residency requirement for new officers to live in Asbury Park or a neighboring town and a focused effort at the high school level to bring in recruits.

Another recommendation was that officers receive crisis intervention training for instances like domestic disturbances and the possibility of bringing on social workers that would be on-call.

The Asbury Park Equity Committee’s full report to the council can be found here.