The Town of Carrboro is seeking applicants to join its Community Safety Task Force, with the goal of developing new approaches to public safety outside of policing.

A total of five to seven Carrboro residents will be selected to the task force. The Carrboro Town Council is seeking residents with professional expertise or lived experience in the criminal legal system, human services delivery, social work, public health and harm reduction, community building in marginalized populations, or related content areas.

Two or three designated town council members will also be a part of the task force.

The task force will aim to provide recommendations for the town council that rely on prevention and intervention strategies as an alternative to traditional policing and the legal system. This includes community nonviolence and de-escalation training programs, domestic violence intervention and prevention, youth-oriented programs, on-call crisis response that would allow certain calls for police assistance to be handled by other trained professionals, such as social workers or crisis counselors; and other related approaches.

Last June, the Carrboro Town Council called a special meeting to address law enforcement issues and made the decision to ban chokeholds and strangleholds in the wake of the George Floyd murder in Minnesota. Special impact munitions — such as rubber bullets and chemical agents — were also banned from being used against people exercising their First Amendment rights.

The Town Council approved a resolution this past April containing steps, including this task force, to advance racial equity in law enforcement and public safety.

“This task force represents hope,” town council member Susan Romaine said back in April. “I think we all agree we have a lot of respect for our police department and the policing that they do, but there are always opportunities to make things better and I think that will come through this task force.”

Those interested in applying for the task force can do so through the Town of Carrboro’s website.

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