TRENTON – New Jersey’s jail population in the third year of Criminal Justice Reform (CJR) continued to consist largely of defendants accused of violent crimes or other serious offenses, according to a report released Sept. 9 by the Administrative Office of the Courts.
According to a release, the 2019 Annual Report on Criminal Justice Reform measured the performance of New Jersey’s pretrial criminal justice system in a number of critical areas. The results it found were similar to the results from the first two years of CJR.
The unnecessary detention of low-risk defendants continued to decrease, according to the report, while the rate of new indictable criminal activity for defendants released pretrial remained low (less than 14%) and court appearance rates for pretrial defendants remained consistently high, just below 90%.
CJR began, in New Jersey, in January 2017, replacing a cash bail system that had stood for more than a century. Under the new system, the use of bail has been minimal.
