Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation Monday that supporters say will close the racial gap and help rehabilitate young offenders.
“I am proud to sign sweeping legislation to reform our juvenile justice system and ensure that our young people have the opportunity they deserve to turn their lives around and build a better future for themselves, their families, and their communities,” said Murphy.
He noted that the signing on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was significant.
New Jersey has the highest racial disparity rate in the country, with a black child 21 times more likely to be locked up than a white child, according to the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.
The new legislation will "help bring New Jersey one step closer to transforming its youth justice system from one that produces this unacceptable injustice to one that treats kids as kids," the organizations President and CEO Ryan Haygood said.
The reforms eliminate fines as a penalty for juvenile offenders, limit when a juvenile may be incarcerated and give discretion to post-incarceration supervision periods that used to be mandatory.
Under the bill, the responsibility of parole decisions will now be transferred from the State Parole Board to a panel that includes at least two members from the Juvenile Justice Commission, as well as a member of the State Parole Board.
The panel will be responsible for determining parole eligibility, supervision, revocation and post-incarceration supervision for juveniles, as well as determining the conditions of parole to ensure that they are appropriately tailored to the juvenile and as least restrictive as necessary. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said "a number of groundbreaking reforms" implemented in the past 15 years have reduced the number of juveniles in state custody by more than 85 percent.
"We are committed to using the additional tools included in the legislation signed today to continue this great work and to reduce the racial disparities that still exist in the system," he said.
“This is a huge step forward to build on gains in juvenile justice reform across New Jersey," said Mary Coogan, vice president of Advocates for Children of New Jersey. "While young offenders should be held accountable for their actions, the goal is to return them to their communities, equipped with the skills they need to stay out of trouble and mature into productive adults. To do this, we need to construct a juvenile justice system that is truly therapeutic rather than punitive. We need to provide youth with better alternatives, diverting those who have committed minor offenses into more constructive enterprises, and rehabilitate serious juvenile offenders with the support they need, providing a path for successful re-entry once they are released.”
Primary sponsors of the legislation include Sens. Nellie Pou and Shirley Turner, and Assemblymembers Benjie Wimberly, Annette Quijano and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson.
