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| NJ seeks to reduce prison overcrowding |
| By nj.com |
| Published: 05/11/2009 |
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New state initiative seeks to reduce prison overcrowding by Chris Megerian/The Star-Ledger After five months in prison for dealing drugs, Nashon James was going straight. He cut hair at his mother's barbershop, tried making money on eBay and even joined a bowling league. Tim Farrell/The Star-LedgerKhalil Muhammad, of Elizabeth, peers from his cell at Delaney Hall in Newark, where parolees get treatment and encouragement as an alternative to prison. But James' past caught up with him. After smoking pot with friends on New Year's Eve, he said he began using cocaine and within months was struggling with a full-blown addiction. "I just came to a hump in the road that I couldn't get over," said James, 29, of Ridgefield Park. After breaking his parole by failing a drug test, James is back in a cell. But he's not in prison. Along with a few dozen New Jersey parole violators, James is locked up in a special program intended to divert low-risk parolees away from jail and back into society. State Parole Board officials say it's the first of its kind in the nation. "We have to take full credit for this one," said Director of Community Programs Lenny Ward. "This is a New Jersey initiative." The idea is to take technical parole violators -- people who haven't committed a new crime but may have failed a drug test or missed a meeting -- and house them for 15 to 30 days at secure facilities run by a private company, Community Education Centers, in Newark or Trenton. Officials hope the program, which can house 45 parole violators at a time, will help the state avoid $14 million in incarceration costs in the coming budget year. In New Jersey, the overwhelming majority of parolees returning to prison each year -- about 85 percent of almost 3,000 -- committed technical violations, not new crimes. Lowering that number would help take a bite out of prison overcrowding at a time when state prisons have about 5,500 more inmates than what they were designed for. Like other states, New Jersey struggles with the high rate of ex-offenders returning to prison. Of the 14,000 inmates released each year, 65 percent are back behind bars within five years. Jeff Mellow, professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said that's changing how people view minor parole violations. "There has been a shift across the country due to the high costs of incarcerations, prison overcrowding, and a new emphasis on rehabilitation that makes us rethink this whole notion of 'zero tolerance,'" Mellow said. "Everyone is realizing that they can no longer incarcerate their way out of this problem." For several years, New Jersey has used a system of "graduated sanctions," in which parole officers have more options than simply returning their offenders to prison. Parolees who have not committed a new crime can receive increased supervision, electronic monitoring or substance abuse treatment. As a result, the number of technical violators returning to prison dropped 37 percent from 2001 to 2008. The Residential Assessment Centers, which opened last summer, use the same concept. According to state officials, 46 percent of technical violators who passed through the centers returned to prison, compared with 81 percent who did not. A total of 810 parolees were diverted from prison as of February, saving more than $2 million. That doesn't mean the program is cheap. The state has already spent $4.51 million on it and is expected to fork over another $3.786 million in the budget year that begins July 1. But parole officials say that money will pay dividends, as more parolees receive the attention they need to get their lives back on track. "Every day that the person is not in county jail or in a state prison, New Jersey basically saves money," Ward said. One of those parolees is Khalil Muhammad, who was released from jail in October after serving a year for drug possession. Muhammad was working at a home improvement company for six months when he moved out his brother's home and into his own place. But he made one mistake: He didn't tell his parole officer that he was moving. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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