Working Summit Report 2025 Action Agenda:

Transforming New Jersey's Criminal Legal System

While Latino and Black New Jerseyans make up 38% of the state’s population, the two overlapping groups account for as much as 80% of people in state prisons, according to Census and NJ Department of Corrections figures.

This overrepresentation of Brown and Black people behind bars is the result not of inherent criminality, but of historical and contemporary injustices that we hope to offset with a new criminal justice reform platform.

The platform, titled “Working Summit 2025 Action Agenda: Transforming New Jersey’s Criminal Legal System,” was unveiled during a conference in Newark on Juneteenth 2025 convened by the Latino Action Network Foundation, and in partnership with various other statewide advocacy groups. This platform is intended to address systemic inequities in New Jersey’s criminal justice system, particularly the disproportionate incarceration of Black and Latino residents.

Read the entire report here:

Planning Team

Cuqui Rivera, Planning Committee Chair
Latino Action Network Foundation
Rebecca Mohr, MSW, LAN Foundation Policy Consultant
Salvation & Social Justice
Returning Citizens Support Group
New Jersey Department of Corrections
New Jersey Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson
American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey
Latino Action Network
New Jersey State Parole Board
New Jersey Office of the Attorney General
New Jersey Office of the Public Defender
New Jersey Youth Justice Commission
American Friends Service Committee (Prison Justice Watch)
United Black Agenda
UU Faith Action NJ
New Jersey Policy Perspective
Puerto Rican Action Board
Samuel Quiles, LAN Foundation Fellow & Returning Citizen
Dr. Johanna Foster, Monmouth University Sociology Program
Richard Rivera, Police Reform Consultant