News & Commentary

No one should be punished for exercising their constitutional right to a fair trial. As Governor Murphy considers categories of people to grant a chance at freedom, it’s imperative to include those who are serving extreme trial penalties.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) just issued a major executive order that gives incarcerated people a chance at freedom.

For the criminal legal system to administer justice, it’s clear that it must move away from extreme punishment and toward solutions that prioritize each individual’s experience.

New Jersey has a moral responsibility to address its history of mass incarceration and racism by offering more opportunities for release. Categorical clemency offers a powerful way to do so.

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.