News & Commentary

Despite a historic downward trend in New Jersey’s prison population in the last decade, many people are still facing extreme sentences, incarcerated for years or even decades after their rehabilitation, and forced to serve sentences that are not commensurate to their crime or culpability.

Early releases from prison in the pandemic in NJ — projected to exceed 8,000 from March 2020 to March 2022 — saved lives and showed the urgent human need for decarceration.

Reducing our prison population was necessary to save lives from COVID-19. Keeping our prison population down is necessary to save lives from an unjust criminal legal system.

Incarcerated people, including immigrants in detention, are among the most vulnerable when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 16, 2020, the ACLU of New Jersey sent a letter to every county jail in New Jersey with recommendations to prevent an outbreak and minimize the virus’s impact.

New Jersey made history on Jan. 1, 2017, when it essentially ended money bail — thanks to years of work by bipartisan advocates and the support of Garden State voters.