ASSEMBLY LAW AND PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 1856

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED: DECEMBER 16, 1996

      The Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee reports favorably and with committee amendments Assembly Bill No. 1856.

      Assembly Bill No. 1856 supplements chapter 17B of Title 52 of the Revised Statutes to establish the "Body Armor Replacement" fund. The moneys in the fund are to be used to purchase protective body vests for local law enforcement officers.

      Under the provisions of the bill, the Attorney General is to administer a grant program to provide replacement body vests for local law enforcement officers. The program is to operate on a five year cycle, with approximately 20 percent of the State's nearly 25,000 local law enforcement officers scheduled to receive replacement vests each year. The five year cycle is important because, on average, the effective life span of a body vest is five to seven years.

      The Attorney General is to promulgate appropriate rules and regulations concerning grant application procedures to be followed by local law enforcement agencies which wish to participate in the program and criteria (such as crime rates and the age and condition of vests currently available to the applicant agency's officers) to be used to prioritize grant requests. To ensure that local law enforcement officers are obtaining the highest quality protective gear, the Attorney General is to develop guidelines identifying specific brands of vests that may be purchased with grant moneys.

      To fund the program, the bill amends R.S.39:5-41 to place a $1 fee on all motor vehicle fines.

      As introduced, all of the fee moneys were to be forwarded to the State Treasurer and deposited in a special "Body Armor Replacement" fund.

      The committee amended the bill: (1) to clarify that the fee is to be imposed only on those fines imposed and collected by a judge and (2) to restructure the allocation of those funds. The provisions of the amendment direct the State Treasurer to allocate annually the first $250,000 to the Department of Personnel to fund the operation of the "Law Enforcement Officer Crisis Intervention Services" telephone hotline established and maintained pursuant to Assembly Bill No. 806. All the moneys collected after that initial amount are to be deposited in the "Body Armor Replacement" fund and used to provide grants to assist local law enforcement agencies in securing vests for their officers.