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Department profile · Ocean County

Island Heights Borough Police Department

Reported as: Island Heights Boro PDMunicipal police

Jurisdiction context

Not a civil service jurisdiction

This department is not among the NJCSC Appendix A jurisdictions, so major discipline here follows a different statutory track (generally N.J.S.A. 40A:14 for municipal police), with appeals that usually go to the Superior Court rather than the Civil Service Commission.

See the context on non-civil-service departments.

Reflects the NJCSC Appendix A roster as of 2026-07-04. Context only, not legal advice.

In brief

Island Heights Borough Police Department is a municipal police agency in Ocean County. It named 1 officer in internal affairs cases in 2025 and recorded 1 investigation, a rate of 100 per 100 officers that matches the Ocean County median of 100 and falls under the 125.9 municipal median. Higher rates are hard to read on their own: they can mean more misconduct or a department that puts more complaints on the record. The 1 investigation detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the allegation category on file.

One major discipline record appears across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2023. Island Heights received an F on the report card, at the 86th percentile among 100 peers in the 1-14 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

Written by this site strictly from the figures on this page; every number is cited below.

Officers named in IA cases, 2025

1[1]

Distinct officers in that year's IA investigations, not total staffing

IA investigations, 2025

1[1]

Incidents, 2025

1[1]

Major discipline records

1

All years, 2020-2025

Staffing

As reported by the department to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) census, full-time personnel as of October 31 each year. This is a different measurement from the "officers named in IA cases" figure above; see the methodology.

Sworn officers, 2025

7[5]

57 years reported

7 sworn officers in 2025, up from 1 in 1968 (+600%).
Yearsworn officers
19681
19691
19701
19711
19722
19733
19743
19753
19764
19775
19786
19793
19804
19813
19821
19835
19844
19853
19864
19875
19885
19897
19906
19915
19925
19936
19946
19955
19965
19975
19984
19993
20003
20013
20025
20034
20045
20055
20065
20075
20084
20095
20105
20114
20125
2013not reported
20146
20159
20165
20175
20186
20197
20207
20217
20226
20237
20246
20257

Civilian employees, 2025

0[6]

0 per sworn officer

Female sworn officers, 2025

2[7]

28.6% of sworn officers

Officers per 1,000 residents, 2025

4.04[8]

Municipal departments only

AnalysisComputed by this site from LEE reported totals; not an official statistic.

How Island Heights Borough Police Department's sworn staffing compares with its real peer group (same agency type, similar size band), not an assumed bell curve.

Peer group: Municipal police, 1-14 officers (n=100)

Sworn officers: Municipal police, 1-14 officers
RangeAgencies
0–213
2–43
4–61
6–816
8–1011
10–1215
12–1441

Island Heights Borough Police Department: 7 sworn officers: 28th percentile among Municipal police, 1-14 officers (n=100).

The match between this FBI record and this department is this site's inference, not a certified mapping. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.

Officer pay and school-staff pay

No median officer salary is published for Island Heights Borough Police Department. A department needs at least 10 active officers resolved to it in the NJ Treasury pension file before this site shows a median. That threshold is about the stability of the figure, not about the department. The county-level comparison is on the Ocean County pay page.

Military surplus equipment (1033 program)

No 1033 transfers recorded. No surplus-equipment transfers appear for this agency under a high-confidence name match in the Defense Logistics Agency's file as of 2026-06-30. That can mean the agency received nothing through the program, or that a recipient name in the federal file did not confidently match this department. See the methodology for how the match is made, or the statewide 1033 overview for how the program spreads across New Jersey.

Internal affairs investigations by year

counts

Internal affairs investigations reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, by year
Categorycounts
20213
20223
20231
20241
20251

Incidents

1 in 2025

Internal affairs incidents reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20213
20223
20231
20241
20251

Officers on IA rows

1 in 2025

Officers listed on the officer-level internal affairs rows for Island Heights Borough Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
2021not reported
2022not reported
2023not reported
20241
20251
Analysis

Computed by this site from the two figures the agency reports each year. Not a misconduct rate: it describes how an agency resolved what it investigated.

share of total · 5 reported years

Share of internal affairs investigations sustained by Island Heights Borough Police Department, by year
Yearshare of total
20210
202233.333
20230
20240
2025100

Statewide, 19.5 percent of investigations reported a sustained complaint in 2025. How dispositions break down statewide.

Complaint mix, 2025

Most serious allegation per investigation, as categorized by the reporting agency. Officer-level rows list 1 officers involved.

Most serious allegation

Most serious allegations reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, 2025
Other Departmental Rule Violation1
AdministrativeConduct / dutyRights / integrityViolence / criminal

Statewide category pages: Other Departmental Rule Violation

Internal disposition

Internal dispositions reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, 2025
Sustained1

Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025

AnalysisRanked and folded by this site. The counts inside each panel are as reported.

Other Departmental Rule Violation

3 of 9

Other Departmental Rule Violation allegations reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20212
20220
20230
20240
20251

Demeanor

2 of 9

Demeanor allegations reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20211
20221
20230
20240
20250

Differential Treatment

1 of 9

Differential Treatment allegations reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20220
20230
20241
20250

Domestic violence (Non-Criminal)

1 of 9

Domestic violence (Non-Criminal) allegations reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20221
20230
20240
20250

Other (2 categories)

2 of 9

Other (2 categories) allegations reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, by year
Yearcounts
20210
20221
20231
20240
20250
Internal affairs investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers, 2025 (investigations per 100 IA-investigated officers)
Island Heights Borough Police Department100.0
County median, municipal police (29)100.0
NJ median, municipal police (445)125.9

Investigations per 100 officers named in that year's IA investigations (the Attorney General's own "Number of Officers" field, a distinct-officer count drawn from the IA case data itself, not a department headcount). A higher number is ambiguous on its own: it can reflect more misconduct, or a stronger internal reporting culture. Medians are computed within the same agency type only.

AnalysisA second, independent rate using FBI-reported staffing instead.

1 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 7 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[20] = 14.3 per 100 FBI-reported sworn officers. This is a genuinely different denominator from the rate above, not a correction of it; the two should not be added or averaged together. See the methodology for why these two officer counts diverge.

Report card

Grade F: Highest fifth of peers

On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology

Combined standing
86th percentile of 100 peers
Confidence
Medium confidence
  • small agency; per-officer rates swing widely on a handful of cases

Where this agency falls among its peers

The actual spread of discipline severity across Island Heights Borough Police Department's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.

Peer group: Municipal police, 1-14 officers (n=100)

Discipline severity: Municipal police, 1-14 officers
RangeAgencies
0–5074
50–1006
100–1508
150–2002
200–2504
250–3002
300–3504

Island Heights Borough Police Department: 125 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 84th percentile among Municipal police, 1-14 officers (n=100).

How the grade is built

Three components, each a percentile within the peer group. The combined standing is their weighted mean, re-ranked among peers; the grade is the fifth of the peer group it lands in.

IA volumeweight 40%

64th percentileof 100 peers

135.0 investigations per 100 officers (multi-year mean)

Internal affairs investigations per 100 reported officers, averaged over the years where the agency reported both figures.

Discipline severityweight 40%

84th percentileof 100 peers

125.0 severity-weighted discipline per 100 officers, 2020-2025

Major discipline records weighted by sanction (termination 4, demotion 3, suspension 2, other 1) per 100 officers.

Allegation severityweight 20%

34th percentileof 100 peers

1.89 mean severity tier (1 low - 4 critical)

Mean severity tier of IA allegations across 2021-2025, using the published tier map; unknown values excluded.

What this grade can and can't tell you

  • The underlying data is self-reported by agencies, one yearly snapshot at a time.
  • Allegations are not findings; many complaints end unfounded, exonerated, or not sustained.
  • There is no arrest or call-volume denominator in this data, so nothing here is a per-capita misconduct rate. A genuinely independent staffing-based rate, sourced from the FBI rather than this grade's own data, appears above when available. It is a different measurement, not a more accurate version of the grade.
  • A higher internal affairs volume is ambiguous: it can indicate more misconduct, or a more robust oversight and reporting culture. The grade weighs it anyway, because volume is what the record offers; that choice is published, not hidden.
  • The grade is one lens. The records it reads are on this page above.

Where this agency ranks

AnalysisRankings compare agencies of the same type only, on figures as reported. A high rank is reported volume, not a verdict.[21] How each metric is defined.
This agency's rank on each metric, among agencies of the same type
MetricValueRank
IA per 100 investigated officers2025100.0322nd of 445 municipal police
IA investigations20251410th of 445 municipal police
IA incidents20251405th of 445 municipal police
Major discipline2020-20251184th of 282 municipal police
Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year4.0460th of 460 municipal police
OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present13325th of 458 municipal police

Major discipline records

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.
Yearmajor discipline records
20200
20210
20220
20231
20240
20250

0 major discipline records in 2025, holding roughly steady.

Major discipline records reported by Island Heights Borough Police Department, 2020-2025
YearOfficerRankSanction as reportedSrc
2023Matthew CurtisDetectiveSuspended 327 daysSeparated while IA pending[22]

Every name links to the officer's record page with the agency's full synopsis and citation.

Public records requests

Records requests about this department filed through OPRAmachine, an independent site that files Open Public Records Act requests in public and publishes the responses.[2] This is a third-party, user-generated source, separate in origin from the Attorney General records elsewhere on this page.

Current as of 12 July 2026. These figures are a point-in-time snapshot and do not update: requests filed to OPRAmachine after that date do not appear here. For live activity, see this body on OPRAmachine.

This department has no separate listing on OPRAmachine. Records requests for it are handled through Island Heights Borough, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 13 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 46 filed to Island Heights Borough are about something else and are not shown.

Police-related requests

13[2]

Identified by subject line, of 59 filed to Island Heights Borough

Most recent request

March 2026[2]

First recorded October 2017

Awaiting a response

10[2]

Requests with no response recorded yet

What happened to those requests

Statuses as recorded on OPRAmachine. They are set by the person who filed the request when they classify what came back, not by the agency and not by any court. They describe the fate of a records request and nothing else.

Recorded outcomes of police-related records requests to Island Heights Borough (requests)
Awaiting agency response10
Requester reported success2
Agency said records not held1

Recent requests

The 12 most recent police-related requests to Island Heights Borough, by date and recorded status. Each was written by a member of the public. A request is a question somebody asked. It is not a finding, not an allegation this site makes, and not evidence that anything happened.

  1. 2026-03-10Requester reported success
  2. 2025-10-08Awaiting agency response
  3. 2025-05-02Awaiting agency response
  4. 2024-10-11Requester reported success
  5. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  6. 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
  7. 2021-04-20Awaiting agency response
  8. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
  9. 2020-05-28Awaiting agency response
  10. 2020-05-27Awaiting agency response
  11. 2020-05-27Awaiting agency response
  12. 2020-05-27Awaiting agency response
Show what each request asked for, as the requester wrote it

These titles are quoted from OPRAmachine exactly as the requester typed them. They are the requester's words, not this site's, and some describe what the requester believed or suspected. Nothing here has been established as fact.

File your own records request

Anyone can request records from this municipality under the Open Public Records Act. This link opens a request on OPRAmachine, pre-filled with a neutral starting point you can edit or replace before you send it. The request, and any response, will be published there.

File an OPRA request about this department

See every request filed to Island Heights Borough on OPRAmachine.

What this section can and can't tell you

  • A request is not a finding. Every entry records what a member of the public asked for. None of it establishes that an agency did anything, and none of it is an allegation this site is making.
  • Statuses come from the requester, not the agency. On OPRAmachine the person who filed the request classifies the response they got, so “successful” means they said they got what they asked for. It is not the agency's word and not an adjudication.
  • Request volume is not a measure of misconduct. A long list usually reflects public interest, local journalism, or one determined requester. A short list usually means few people have asked.
  • This covers OPRAmachine only. Most OPRA requests in New Jersey are filed directly with agencies and never appear here, so this is a floor, not a total.
  • It is frozen at 12 July 2026. The figures come from a snapshot of OPRAmachine taken on that date and nothing refreshes them, so anything filed since is missing. Treat every number here as a lower bound that is only getting further out of date.
  • The count is an undercount, by design. Requests to Island Heights Borough are sorted by subject line, because that custodian also handles permits, property, and code enforcement. A request that is genuinely about the police but carries a vague subject line, and many do read only “OPRA Request,” is not counted here. The sorting is this site's own reading of the request titles, not a fact from the source, and it is deliberately cautious: it would rather miss a police request than show you somebody's building permit.

The match between this OPRAmachine body and this department is this site's inference, not a certified mapping. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.

Questions and answers

What is a summary of Island Heights Borough Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?

Island Heights Borough Police Department is a municipal police agency in Ocean County. It named 1 officer in internal affairs cases in 2025 and recorded 1 investigation, a rate of 100 per 100 officers that matches the Ocean County median of 100 and falls under the 125.9 municipal median. Higher rates are hard to read on their own: they can mean more misconduct or a department that puts more complaints on the record. The 1 investigation detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. Other Departmental Rule Violation was the allegation category on file. One major discipline record appears across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2023. Island Heights received an F on the report card, at the 86th percentile among 100 peers in the 1-14 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.

How many internal affairs investigations did Island Heights Borough Police Department report in 2025?

Island Heights Borough Police Department reported 1 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 1 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.

How many major discipline records does Island Heights Borough Police Department have?

Island Heights Borough Police Department has 1 major discipline records in the Attorney General's 2020-2025 releases, of which 0 were terminations. These are final, adjudicated actions, not allegations.

How many officers does Island Heights Borough Police Department have?

Island Heights Borough Police Department reported 7 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 28.6% of them female. That is 4.04 sworn officers per 1,000 residents. This is a different measurement from the "officers named in IA cases" figure elsewhere on this page, which counts distinct officers in that year's internal affairs investigations, not total staffing.

Sources

  1. [1]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2419. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09.
  2. [2]Records-request activity for Island Heights Borough. OPRAmachine (opramachine.com), an independent public-records platform. Publicly visible requests only. Point-in-time snapshot taken 2026-07-12 from a database export dated 2026-07-11. Not updated after that date; see opramachine.com for current activity.
  3. [3]New Jersey Internal Affairs Officers, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Officer counts summed across every Island Heights Boro PD row. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09.
  4. [4]New Jersey county boundaries. New Jersey Office of Information Technology, Office of GIS (NJOGIS). NJ_Counties_3857 (FeatureServer layer 0), https://services2.arcgis.com/XVOqAjTOJ5P6ngMu/arcgis/rest/services/NJ_Counties_3857/FeatureServer/0. 2020 boundary delineation. Retrieved 2026-07-27. Boundaries are generalized for display. This data set is not a survey document and must not be used as such. The polygons do not represent legal boundaries.
  5. [5]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8514. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/.
  6. [6]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8514. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/.
  7. [7]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8514. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/.
  8. [8]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8514. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/.
  9. [9]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 383. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09.
  10. [10]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1402. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09.
  11. [11]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1908. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09.
  12. [12]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 885. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09.
  13. [13]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2419. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09.
  14. [14]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Island Heights Boro PD row for 2025; row 1 is the header.
  15. [15]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Island Heights Boro PD row for 2021.
  16. [16]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Island Heights Boro PD row for 2022.
  17. [17]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Island Heights Boro PD row for 2023.
  18. [18]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Island Heights Boro PD row for 2024.
  19. [19]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Island Heights Boro PD row for 2025.
  20. [20]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8514. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/.
  21. [21]Ranks computed by this site over the Attorney General internal affairs agency totals and major discipline releases, within agency type. Each ranking page lists every agency and its source rows.
  22. [22]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1837. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03.