New CCRB Gets Funding To Crack Down On Police Misconduct

The city has allocated $1.6 million to fund the revamped Civilian Complaint Review Board, which has traditionally been a toothless, opaque system that was easily dismissed by the NYPD, but will now have the power to prosecute police officers accused of wrongdoing. According to the Wall Street Journal, the board's Administrative Prosecution Unit will include a chief, a deputy, ten prosecutors, and five investigators, and the funding will kick in on July 1.
The CCRB will have the authority to prosecute everything from excessive or unnecessary force to abuse of authority to discourtesy or the use of offensive language. While the Commissioner will still be able to overrule the CCRB's decisions, he will have to formally explain why, in writing. From 2002 to 2010, the CCRB recommended that 2,078 officers receive the most severe penalty, but that punishment was only handed down to 151 officers.