NEW JERSEY LAW ENFORCEMENT SUPERVISORS ASSOCIATION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The New Jersey Law Enforcement Supervisors Association (hereinafter “NJLESA”), the Labor Union that represents Correctional Police Sergeants employed by the New Jersey Department of Corrections and the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission has called on Governor Phillip Murphy to discontinue his practice of prematurely releasing New Jersey Inmates before they have served their full period of incarceration. The demand was made once the NJLESA Leadership Team learned that the New Jersey Department of Corrections will be releasing over one thousand seven hundred (1,700) inmates on the date of Sunday, March 13, 2022 as part of the State of New Jersey’s “Emergency Health Credit” program that was statutorily created in 2020.

NJLESA President, William Lanoza stated:

Once this large group of inmates are released, the total number of prisoners that will have been prematurely released under this program will be over nine thousand five hundred (9,500). This is extremely troubling as it constitutes more than fifty percent (50%) of New Jersey’s pre-pandemic incarcerated inmate population.

It is my understanding that the legislation that created the early release program was intended to protect inmates, custody and civilian staff from the spread of COVID-19 in State correctional facilities. However, COVID-19 is now practically non-existent in New Jersey State’s Correctional facilities as an average of less than one (1) out of the Department’s over seven thousand (7,000) permanent and contract employees test positive daily for the virus. As a result of these statistics I have no choice but to question if the release of these prisoners is COVID-19 related or simply part of a plan to reduce New Jersey’s prison population to close more state prisons.

President Lanoza went on to further state that:

The Governor’s actions are not making New Jersey’s streets, towns and cities any safer. In fact, the murder rate in New Jersey climbed twenty three percent (23%) in 2021 reaching the highest it has been since 2016. The vast majority of inmates that are being released under this legislation are being bussed to our State’s urban centers and thereafter left to themselves. Granting “emergency health credits” to inmates now, when it is clearly not needed leaves our cities and our State far too vulnerable to unneeded and unnecessary crime.