Build 3 New Youth Prisons In NJ? Proposal Sees Support, Criticism

NEW JERSEY — In 2018, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced that the state would be closing two of its three youth prisons: the New Jersey Training School for Boys in Monroe, also known as Jamesburg, and the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility in Bordentown, also known as Hayes. Four years later, those jails still remain open under the watch of Gov. Phil Murphy – although they’re expected to close their doors soon.

But now there may be plans to build three new facilities to replace them.

Earlier this week, a state task force released a long-awaited list of suggestions about how to reform the juvenile justice system in New Jersey. The report from the Task Force for the Continued Transformation of Youth Justice in New Jersey – which was formed in 2018 under an executive order from Murphy – can be seen online here.

“No youth is beyond redemption,” the task force asserted. “As we know from the brain science, adolescence continues into the mid-20s. It is a time of significant growth and maturation. It presents, therefore, a critical opportunity for redirection. And all young people, whatever harm they may have caused, deserve just that, with a robust assortment of programs and opportunities for growth and rehabilitation.”

While the report had dozens of recommendations, the suggestion to build several new juvenile prisons was among its highlights.

The task force supported the closure of Jamesburg and Hayes, which its members said were old, outdated and hard to reach for many families. In addition, the task force recommended that state officials close the state’s third existing youth prison, the Juvenile Medium Security Facility in Bordentown.

However, the task force also said that New Jersey should construct three smaller replacement facilities that “promote healing, rehabilitation and the reintegration of committed youth into their communities” – while keeping public safety in mind.

None of the new facilities should have more than 48 beds, and should be put in locations that are easily accessible to the inmates’ families, the task force said.

The task force emphasized that the new facilities should not be built as “youth prisons,” instead serving as therapeutic spaces where young people accused of serious crimes can safely get the help they need to turn their lives around.

Alexander Shalom, a senior attorney with the ACLU of New Jersey, said the state needs to start “investing far more money in keeping kids out of prison than keeping them in.” But Shalom added that the realities of the current system need to be taken into account.

“While working toward a vision of New Jersey where no children are incarcerated, we also recognize that current sentencing laws, which allows prosecutors to charge children in adult court, necessarily mean that some children will be imprisoned in high-security facilities away from home,” Shalom said.

“Until we can eliminate youth prisons altogether, we support the task force’s recommendation to create smaller facilities that operate under a model of trauma-informed care, where children can maintain closer contact with their families and have access to more space and programming,” Shalom said.

CRITICS: NO MORE YOUTH PRISONS IN NJ

Other civil rights advocates have disagreed.

On Tuesday, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ), the NAACP New Jersey State Conference, Latino Action Network and Salvation and Social Justice released a joint statement criticizing the task force’s recommendation.

Read their full opinion here.

“New Jersey cannot transform its youth justice system by simply replacing old youth prisons with new, smaller youth prisons,” the four groups argued. “Instead, New Jersey must take bold action and announce a prison closure timeline, invest in community programs and transform its youth facilities.”

The state should develop publicly run, “treatment-focused” Youth Resource Centers of no more than 30 beds for the few juveniles who do require a secure facility, advocates proposed.

But for the most part, the Garden State’s youth prisons are largely empty – and wasteful, they said. For example, New Jersey’s youth prisons were almost 80 percent empty in February 2022, while staffing levels were maintained as if the prisons were full.

Meanwhile, the “largest black-white youth incarceration gap in the nation” that partly led to Murphy’s executive order in 2018 is still festering in the Garden State, advocates said:

“In New Jersey, a Black youth is almost 18 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white youth – the highest racial disparity in America – despite Black and white youth committing most offenses at similar rates. New Jersey also has the fourth-highest Latina/o-to-white youth incarceration disparity rate in the country, with a Latina/o juvenile more than four times more likely to be detained or committed than a white youth.”

“Despite the staggering racial disparities, the declining overall population of incarcerated youth and the danger to youth, New Jersey has doubled down on investment in incarceration,” advocates said. “New Jersey will spend an incredible $608,095 to incarcerate each youth in a state youth prison in fiscal year 2023.”

• See related article: Here's How Much Money New Jersey Spends On Cops, Prisons

The Social Justice Task Force Members’ dissent also claims that New Jersey’s youth incarceration system “does not significantly reduce recidivism or increase public safety.” Of the 336 youths released from commitment in state youth facilities in 2015, about 78 percent had a new court filing or arrest, 61.3 percent had a new adjudication or conviction, and 28 percent were recommitted within three years of release.

The dissenters pointed to a public outcry against building a new youth prison in Newark three years ago, offering it as proof that many already overburdened communities don’t want yet another jail built in their backyards. Read More: New Jersey's Plan For Youth Prison Reform Causes Worry In Newark

“New Jersey has the opportunity to finally close its youth prisons and transform its broken youth justice system,” the groups wrote. “But such a precious moment for transformation will be squandered if Gov. Murphy decides to simply construct new youth prisons on the other side of closing larger ones.”

‘DON’T CALL THEM PRISONS’

A task force subcommittee released an official reply to the dissenting opinion, saying that it’s agreed in principle that New Jersey should not invest in new youth prisons.

But the facilities they’re proposing to build aren’t jails, they added.

The subcommittee wrote:

“A smaller, state-of-the-art facility that promotes healing, rehabilitation and reentry into society — the option on which we settled — is hardly a ‘prison.’ To the contrary, these campus-like structures are intended, in both physical and programmatic design, to give committed youth the space they need to heal and the skills they need to return to their communities. To call them ‘prisons’ is a disservice to the long-term, multidisciplinary efforts that have gone into the thoughtful design of these facilities.”

The committee added:

“The dissent also seems to ignore the purpose of placement and the challenges associated with serving a population of high-risk youth with complex and chronic trauma. The youth committed to the custody of the JJC have been adjudicated of serious and violent offenses by the family court; they cannot simply be moved, like pieces on a game board, from a secure facility to a retrofitted RCH that happens to have an empty bunk. These young people have different risk and classification profiles, different service needs and different geographic requirements, to ensure access to their families and communities.”

According to a statement from the governor’s office, the Murphy Administration will review the report’s findings “within the context of pandemic realities, subsequent legislation, directives and administrative decisions.”

HOW DID NEW JERSEY GET HERE?

The task force gave some additional background about the situation in their report. It reads:

“New Jersey has been engaged in reforming the juvenile justice system for more than a decade. It has been a pioneer in expanding community options for court-involved youth. In 2004, it became one of the first states to embrace the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI). Since then, New Jersey has become the only state to implement detention alternatives statewide, in all of its 21 counties. As a result, New Jersey is considered a trailblazer in championing juvenile justice reforms that make our system fairer and keep us safe.

“New Jersey’s reform efforts have led to a remarkable reduction in the number of youth held in secure facilities. Through the collaborative implementation of JDAI, the number of youth in detention has dropped by 70 percent, from about 12,000 a year to 2,300, with youth of color accounting for more than 90 percent of the decrease. Additionally, the number of youth committed by the family court to the state Juvenile Justice Commission (JJC) has decreased by 85 percent, from about 1,200 to 150 a year. Importantly, New Jersey has achieved these results by ensuring that youth with low-level offenses and limited delinquency histories are served in the community. These changes also set the stage for legislation that took effect in 2016 that allows juveniles sentenced to prison in the adult system to begin their time in a JJC facility.

“As a result of these reforms — and a declining reliance on incarceration, particularly for minor offenses — the profile of the typical youth committed to state custody has changed significantly. Over 70 percent of the committed population is over the age of 18 (the average age is 18.5 years); more than 60 residents are serving adult sentences in JJC facilities, instead of adult prison. And the charges for which they are doing time are among the most serious: Approximately 85 percent of all youth in custody have a history of violent offenses, including homicide, sexual assault, carjacking, aggravated assault and armed robbery, and are committed on sentences that average five years, with some youth sentenced to terms of 10 years or more.

“In order to meet the complex needs of this changing population and improve outcomes, in 2017, the JJC initiated a comprehensive assessment of its facilities and practice model. The resulting JJC reform plan called for expanding and strengthening the programming offered in residential and secure facilities, to better equip young people with the skills needed to live safely and responsibly upon returning to their communities.

“The JJC currently operates three secure and 11 non-secure residential community homes (RCHs or “residential facilities”). One of the RCHs is partially secure, with additional fencing and restrictions on residents’ off-site privileges; this RCH serves as a 60-day stepdown placement for youth transitioning from a secure to a fully non-secure residential facility. In 2019, the average daily population in secure facilities was 178 youth; in residential facilities, it was 134. Ninety-five percent of the JJC population is male, and five percent is female.

“Unfortunately, racial disparities continue to plague the system. According to the Sentencing Project, in 2017, a black youth in New Jersey was over 20 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white youth. This disparity reflects the complex interplay of multiple factors and cannot be solved by just one change. All system actors must share a single-minded commitment to identifying its causes and developing solutions. In addition to more directly analyzing decision points at every stage of justice system involvement, to ensure fairness and equity in decisions regardless of race, ethnicity, gender and neighborhood, it is paramount that the communities most impacted by poverty and violence receive adequate resources for youth and families and that therapeutic approaches are utilized to address trauma.

“The three secure facilities — the Juvenile Medium Security Facility (JMSF), the New Jersey Training School (NJTS) and the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility, known as Hayes — are old, outdated and were designed according to adult correctional standards. They are inadequate to meet the needs of today’s youth, many of whom have experienced significant trauma and require healing and therapeutic rehabilitation. Moreover, the facilities are located in Monroe Township and Bordentown, far from the residents’ homes, and are not easily accessible by public transportation. This makes it difficult for the residents’ family members and support networks to visit them while they are in custody. Most of the RCHs are also old and outdated and, with the exception of one residential program located in Newark, are a great distance from the residents’ communities.

“In 2017, a decision was made to close NJTS and the Hayes facility, and bond funding was secured to build significantly smaller, more therapeutic and developmentally appropriate replacement facilities. The bond funding secured was based on estimates for constructing three 48-bed facilities that could be regionalized (in northern, central and southern New Jersey) so that committed youth could be housed geographically closer to their families and communities. Importantly, implementation of this plan would represent a 42 percent reduction in the JJC’s secure-care capacity, resulting in the elimination of 222 beds. The state conducted a property search to identify three locations for siting the new, smaller facilities, though only two locations were approved during the bond process.

“In undertaking its charge, the facilities subcommittee met with and considered the input of youth charged with serious and violent offenses. The subcommittee considered the voices of these committed youth — the population most impacted by proposed changes — critical. These young people shared with the subcommittee their aspirations and offered concrete suggestions on how New Jersey should address those similarly charged. Among the themes to emerge were the need to strengthen communities, address the root causes of recidivism and focus on healing and rehabilitation. The young people also emphasized the need to expand resources, especially for older JJC residents with longer sentences who need education, vocation and employment credentials to prepare for their futures. The youth with whom the subcommittee met made it clear that, if placement in secure care was necessary, they preferred living quarters with their own rooms and campus-like settings filled with a broad array of therapeutic and vocational opportunities.

“The subcommittee also focused on how facilities could be improved to strengthen family and community engagement, to provide youth in custody with the necessary tools to succeed in life and to maximize the use of non-secure options.”

• See related article: ‘Petty Crimes, Serious Time’: Plug Prison Pipeline, NJ Man Says
• See related article: NJ Police Just Got 5 Tools To Help Juveniles Avoid Jail Time

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