New Jersey plans to spend a staggering $445,504 per incarcerated youth in 2022 to house them in facilities that are almost 80% empty.

The time is now for New Jersey to close its youth prisons and invest in community-based alternatives. The current system, with its focus wholly on punishment rather than rehabilitation, the current system leaves whole communities — as well as the families of both victims and offenders — with unresolved trauma that continues to reverberate long after the original offense. Rather than rehabilitation and education, the systemic over-use of youth incarceration has meant wasted opportunities to reach youthful offenders and provide the tools and interventions necessary for success.

The system does not build resiliency and maturity, and in fact, is structured not to do so. Juvenile incarceration feeds a destructive “school-to-prison pipeline” that funnels young offenders — especially youth of color — directly into the adult corrections system. New Jersey bears the shame of the worst black to white youth incarceration disparity rate in the nation with Black youth 21 times more likely to be locked up than their white counterparts despite committing most offenses at similar rates. Our state also has the fourth-highest incarceration disparity rate for Latina/Latino youth.

New Jersey can do better. New Jersey must do better.

Some promising bills have been introduced in the New Jersey Legislature to significantly transform how our state does youth justice. One of these bills, the Restorative and Transformative Justice for Youth and Communities Pilot Program (S2924/A4663), would create two-year pilot programs in four cities — Paterson, Newark, Trenton and Camden — to assist with the reintegration of youth released from juvenile facilities, prevent recidivism and help youth avoid any initial involvement with the adult system.

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