The Working Summit 25 is a reconvening of State Leadership, Returning Citizens, the Advocate community, affected Families, & Incarcerated voices throughout NJ to address the continued gross overrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos throughout the Criminal Justice system in New Jersey.
In 2003, 20 years ago, Black & Latino Leaders (specifically, the Hispanic Directors Association of NJ & the NJ Black Issues Convention) brought together leadership from the NJ Department of Corrections, Office of the Corrections Ombudsman, NJ State Parole Board, The Office of the Attorney General, the Juvenile Justice Commission, the NJ State Police, and numerous others from the state-wide Criminal Justice System. The intent was to convene the NJ Community & Corrections Working Summit, Impacting Communities of Color. The focus was to map an action agenda impacting future statewide Criminal Justice Reforms. This event sparked an ongoing movement that works tirelessly to address the adult mass incarceration of people of color in New Jersey.
The current landscape of NJ as it relates to this movement, 20 years later, shows many tremendous successes. Many are first in the nation new laws like Police Licensing, Mental Health Law enforcement Community Street Team programs, Use of Force & Internal Affairs Directives, No-cost Public Defender services, Sentencing Reforms, Cannabis legalization that eliminated hundreds of thousands of convictions and charges related to cannabis possession, Bail Reform, Isolated Confinement laws, Covid-19 Emergency release laws for the incarcerated that released almost 5,000 short term returning citizens, the right to vote laws for 83,000 plus returning citizens. We are misinformed to assume that any of these achievements have increased crime statewide, in fact, reports clearly demonstrate the opposite overall. These are just a few of the successes that collective energies have produced. It Takes the “Whole” Village…
Questions: Cuqui Rivera, [email protected]