From Injustice to Transformation: The Movement to Reimagine New Jersey’s Criminal-Legal System
- Sofia Rosa
- Jun 26
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 27
For decades, our state has carried some of the harshest racial disparities in the country’s criminal-legal system. Though Black and Latino communities make up just under half of New Jersey’s population, they represent nearly 80% of the state’s incarcerated population. Even our youth are not spared — Black children are 24 times more likely and Latino youth 5 times more likely than white children to be sentenced to a juvenile correction facility for the same offenses.
These statistics are not abstract. They are lived realities — symptoms of deep, systemic racism that has long over-policed, over-sentenced, and under-resourced our communities.
But in New Jersey, we don’t just document problems — we organize for transformation.
Twenty years ago, the first Community & Corrections Working Summit brought together Black and Latino advocates, policy leaders, and directly impacted communities to challenge the system head-on. What followed was a wave of criminal justice reforms once thought impossible: bail reform, cannabis legalization, voting rights for returning citizens, police accountability, COVID release and Isolated confinement laws for juvenile and adult, and more.
Today, the urgency remains — and so does the momentum. On January 6–7, 2025, we re-convened for the Working Summit 2025, not just to reflect, but to build a bold action agenda that imagines something beyond reform: transformation.
This movement centers currently/formerly incarcerated leaders, community organizers, and racial justice advocates who believe that incarceration should never be the answer to poverty, mental health needs, or the legacy of white supremacy. We are calling for investments in people, not prisons — in housing, education, mental health, and reentry support that allow communities to thrive, not just survive. And the truth is, transformation works.
Over the past two decades, New Jersey’s prison population has declined by two-thirds, yet cost of youth incarceration has increased $600,000 per child per year — resources that could instead be reinvested into schools, job training, health services, and healing-centered care. Families are reuniting. Communities are growing stronger. The progress is real — and the potential is far greater. This isn’t about incremental reform. It’s about rejecting the status quo and reimagining justice itself.
📘 We invite you to explore our full report — a roadmap of transformative recommendations created by and for New Jersey communities.Together, we are building something that cannot be undone: a future rooted in dignity, equity, and liberation.
🎥 Watch highlights, panel discussions, and powerful moments from the event in our Working Summit 2025 YouTube Playlist.
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