NJ Prison Population Is Creeping Up After A Decade Of Decline

NEWARK, NJ — State and federal prisons across the nation are experiencing a rise in their inmate populations for the first time in nearly a decade, new federal data shows.

States that saw increases include New Jersey, where the prison population grew by 1.2 percent between 2021 and 2022, according to this week’s report from the U.S. Department of Justice.

There were 12,506 men and women in custody at a state or federal correctional facility in New Jersey in 2021. That number increased to 12,657 in 2022, the most recent year of data available.

Like other states, New Jersey has been seeing a drop in its number of inmates over the past decade. However, despite the state’s prison population being cut in half over the last 10 years, racial disparities exist at roughly the same rate they did a decade ago, some advocates say.

New Jersey’s prison growth is slightly less than the national average. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 1,230,100 people incarcerated in state or federal prisons across the U.S. at the end of 2022 – a 2 percent increase from the previous year.

“This rise erased the 1 percent decline reported in 2021, and marked the first increase in the combined state and federal prison population in almost a decade,” BJS acting director Kevin Scott said.

In total, 36 states saw an increase to their prison populations last year. The largest rise was seen in Mississippi, where the inmate population swelled by 15 percent.

Some civil rights advocates, including The Sentencing Project, called the latest report “alarming.”

“For over a decade, the country has been moving away from a failed playbook of incarceration and overcriminalization — often motivated by bipartisan consensus to reform the country’s broken criminal legal system,” said Ashley Nellis, the nonprofit’s co-director of research.

Nellis said that a recent temporary uptick in crime has “tested this resolve.” Read More: Blizzard Of 'Tough On Crime' Bills In NJ Is Bad News, Advocates Argue

“Rather than succumbing to fruitless impulses to get tougher, jurisdictions should redouble their efforts to decarcerate to achieve an effective and just criminal legal system,” Nellis added.

In October, the FBI released their latest trend report on crime rates in each state. According to the data, violent crime was up more than 10 percent in New Jersey in 2022. Read More: Latest Violent, Property Crime Data For NJ Released By FBI

However – when viewed on a larger scale – violent crime remains at record lows in the Garden State, the data shows.

New Jersey’s violent crime rate stood at 202.9 per 100,000 people in 2022 – well below the totals seen in 1985 (544.5 per 100,000 people) and 1990 (647.6 per 100,000 people). Read More: NJ Is 'Safest' State In Nation For Violent Crime, New Study Says

Data from the New Jersey Department of Corrections showed that the average annual cost to house an inmate in a state prison facility came to $50,590 in 2019. Meanwhile, the state parole board has indicated that it costs $6,181 per year to oversee each person released on parole.

• See Related: NJ Releases 800 Inmates – And $148 Per Day It Costs To House Them

In 2021, MoneyGeek released a list of “Policing and Corrections Spending by State.” New Jersey ranked as the state with the 15th highest spending overall, with a $656 per capita rate.

• See Related: Here's How Much Money New Jersey Spends On Cops, Prisons: Report
• See Related: NJ Spends $1 Billion Every Year Fighting The Drug War, Study Says

Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.