Introduction

$600,000. Imagine how an annual investment of $600,000 could change a kid’s life. New Jersey invests this amount to incarcerate each kid in its failed youth prisons1 in which a Black youth is 18 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white youth2 — the worst racial disparity in America, even though Black and white youth commit most offenses at similar rates. As of February 9, 2022, there were 102 youth who were incarcerated in state prisons – 64% Black, 21% Hispanic and 11% white. Over the past decade, New Jersey has invested over half a billion dollars in its shameful youth incarceration system. That is enough to provide free in-state tuition at Rutgers University for nearly 40,000 students or increase New Jersey’s support for violence intervention programs nearly thirty-fold. Incredibly, this outrageous expenditure will go to youth prisons that are nearly 80% empty, do not rehabilitate our youth, expose them to unsafe conditions and separate them from their families and loved ones. In January 2018, following advocacy from the 150 Years is Enough campaign, former Governor Chris Christie announced the closure of two of New Jersey’s three youth prisons. In October 2018, following Governor Christie’s announcement and advocacy by the Institute and its partners, Governor Phil Murphy created the Task Force for the Continued Transformation of Youth Justice in New Jersey. This task force consisted of numerous parties – including representatives from state agencies and advocacy organizations – and was charged with overhauling the state’s broken youth justice system. Yet, despite the system’s failures, a pandemic, a national reckoning on race, no youth prisons having yet closed and almost four years after its initial charge, the task force released its report recommending the construction of new youth prisons. This recommendation was made over the objections of several social justice organization task force members – including the Institute, NAACP New Jersey State Conference, Latino Action Network and Salvation and Social Justice – and those of the over 900 community members that attended the task force’s public hearings. Rather than building up our young people, New Jersey is investing outrageous sums of money in harmful youth prisons that should have been closed years ago and considering making the same mistake again.

And what about the other costs of youth incarceration? Is the cost of incarceration only the dollars and cents that it takes to lock up a child? What about the cost of lost opportunities? How do we put a cost on the youth that does not become a doctor but instead finds herself trapped in a never-ending cycle of recidivism? How do we quantify the loss of hope and aspiration in that young person? How can we quantify what despair costs the soul of our youth?

$600k to Damage Our Kids Forever: A Youth Incarceration Disaster draws from the stories of currently and formerly incarcerated youth, their parents, community members, attorneys, advocates and other professionals – centering their experiences to identify the panoply of costs – financial and otherwise – that incarceration inflicts upon youth, families and the state. First, this report will explore the costs of incarceration including the costs to individual youth, the costs to families, the cost to the State of New Jersey and the intangible costs of incarceration. Second, the report will recommend ways that New Jersey can reduce the costs of incarceration for youth.’ These recommendations include the following:

1. The Murphy administration should announce a timeline for closing New Jersey’s three youth prisons.
2. New Jersey should codify youth justice transformation into law by reintroducing and passing the New Jersey Youth Justice Transformation Act.
3. New Jersey should successfully implement the Restorative and Transformative Justice for Youths and Communities Pilot Program and expand it statewide.
4. New Jersey should prevent youth prosecuted as adults from being issued fines and fees, must eliminate outstanding fines and fees in their cases and eliminate outstanding public defender fees for youth.

Through these recommendations, New Jersey can finally put an end to its broken youth incarceration system – and its related costs. More than a century and a half ago, Frederick Douglass famously argued that “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Douglass’s words echo today across New Jersey with eerie precision. It is past time to invest in building up our kids, not in prisons for them.

As D.P.’s powerful words illustrate, the costs of incarceration to incarcerated youth are profound.

For one, youth incarceration exposes youth to unsafe conditions that prevent positive youth development. There have been multiple allegations of sexual abuse in New Jersey’s youth prisons and, most recently, a guard pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated assault for fracturing a youth’s wrist. Our state’s three youth prisons, the Juvenile Medium Security Facility (“JMSF”), the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility (“Hayes”) and the New Jersey Training School for Boys (“Jamesburg”), not only subject youth to unsafe environments, but also do not rehabilitate them, with over 25% of youth returning to prison within two years after being released. And this wasteful system disproportionately impacts our Black youth at a time when our state has proclaimed that “Black lives matter”: New Jersey has the highest Black to white youth incarceration disparity rate in the nation of almost 18:1.18:1. For Latina/o youth, the disparity rate is over 4:1, the third- highest disparity rate in the nation.

In this section we will highlight the following additional costs to individual youth gathered from our conversations: decreased mental health, recidivism and missed opportunities.

Decreased Mental Health

Incarceration has an undeniably negative impact on youth mental health. Nationwide, researchers have documented the correlation between youth incarceration and mental health diagnoses, with studies showing that between 50% to 70% of incarcerated youth have a mental health diagnosis. Studies have also shown that incarceration exacerbates mental health issues in youth, in part because youth are isolated from their families and have barriers to accessing necessary mental health treatment. And most troubling, at a time when youth are developing into adults, incarceration leads to worse adult mental and physical health outcomes.

New Jersey’s incarcerated youth are also subjected to these same mental health challenges. In 2018, almost 25% of the youth in JMSF, the most secure youth prison for boys, had a pre-existing mental health diagnosis. As discussed in the Institute’s recent publication, Investing in Youth, Not Incarceration: A Toolkit for Creating a Community-Led Approach to Youth Mental Health, incarceration may also lead to increased suicide attempts and substance usage. In short, incarceration removes youth who may already have mental health concerns, places them in youth prisons where these problems fester and releases them worse for wear.

Recidivism

An unfortunate feature of youth incarceration is that youth are removed from their communities and placed in concentrated settings where they are indoctrinated into a culture that breeds recidivism. According to a 30-state recidivism survey, nearly 76% of youth are rearrested within three years of their release. Studies also show that incarcerated youth are also more likely to reoffend as an adult for serious offenses. This tracks in New Jersey, where over 70% of released youth had a new court case or rearrest within three years and over 25% of New Jersey’s youth released from its juvenile facilities will return to those facilities within two years. Several individuals we surveyed had multiple stints of incarceration as a youth which developed into incarceration as an adult. Those we surveyed also explained how youth incarceration led to continued criminal behavior. Overall, the effect of youth incarceration increasing the likelihood of adult incarceration is that youth who are incarcerated now are more likely to recidivate and once again be removed from their families through incarceration later on.

Missed Opportunities

Incarceration causes youth to miss critical opportunities in their early life that have serious repercussions later on. Incarceration disrupts schooling; it makes it less likely that a youth will complete high school. Unsurprisingly, incarcerated youth may perpetually earn less during their career, with one study showing that youth incarceration negatively impacts adult earning potential.

Nationwide, formerly incarcerated people earn roughly half as much per year as their socioeconomically comparable peers. The disparities are even worse for Black and Latina/o individuals who have more substantial earnings losses than their white formerly incarcerated counterparts – totaling $358,900 to $511,500 in losses throughout a lifetime. Youth incarceration is thus a barrier to youth timely completing their secondary or higher education and is an obstacle to youth reaching their full potential.

Youth are not the only individuals to bear the costs of their incarceration; their families often have to pick up the tab. The costs are multifaceted and may include fees for legal defense and fines in certain cases, travel costs to visit youth in prison, supporting commissary (or prison-based convenience store) costs and the loss of companionship and income from their youth.

Fees For Legal Defense

A significant fee that families have had to pay is for legal representation when using public defenders because they are unable to afford a private defense attorney at a higher cost. Until recently, New Jersey’s public defender agency, the Office of Public Defender (OPD), was statutorily required to charge fees and charged youth flat fees that depended on the level of offense and the duration of the trial. OPD recovered fees in youth cases at a slightly higher rate than in adult cases. This may have been because youth, as well as their guardians, were financially liable for these fees. Statutorily required public defender fees have unnecessarily burdened youth and their families. These fees can result in judgments, liens on property and the withholding of state tax returns which may continue to impact families beyond the recent legislation.

Progress was recently made when the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill that eliminated public defender fees for youth; importantly, however, this bill did not forgive outstanding fees.

Travel Costs to Visit Youth in Person

Another quantifiable and significant cost to families is the cost of visiting their young people in prison. New Jersey has three youth prisons: JMSF, Hayes and Jamesburg. These three locations are located in distant areas far from populous areas of the state that commit high numbers of youth to state facilities. For example, a family member fortunate enough to have use of a vehicle could make the 139.2-mile round trip from Paterson (in Passaic County) to JMSF for $18.20. This does not include highway tolls. For those without vehicles, traveling via public transportation can be more costly. New Jersey Transit trains from Paterson to the Trenton River Line light rail cost $33.50 for two one-way tickets and then $3.20 for two one-way tickets for the trip along the River Line from Trenton to Bordentown — totaling $36.70. On top of that, it then costs around $10 to $12 for a one-way trip from the Bordentown station to the JMSF prison using a mobile for-hire vehicle application. Notably, these costs do not include the hours it takes to make this trip, time away from work or lost wages. If this trip is taken multiple times a month over years, these costs will amount to thousands of dollars per family member.

Commissary Costs

The financial costs that families shoulder do not stop at lawyers’ fees or transportation costs. They also extend to costs that youth will incur once they are inside the facility. Families are often burdened by the costs of depositing money to a youth’s account for the youth’s use in purchasing items at a commissary – which sells products that range from food to toiletries – or a prison- based convenience store.

As a result, youth are often dependent on commissary during their incarceration. As D.P. notes, he would go hungry if he did not have commissary and commissary was his “lifeline.” Unfortunately, the need for commissary items, combined with limited access to funds and possible markup in the prices of these items, is a detriment to the youth and their families who find themselves obligated to pay it. A Prison Policy Initiative report on commissary costs across several states found that incarcerated individuals spend significant amounts of money on commissary, with individuals in Illinois and Massachusetts paying over $1,000 annually for commissary and individuals in Washington State paying over $500.

It should come as no surprise that the “one-two punch” of the need for commissary and its prices creates tension within families. The money that families send to commissary for incarcerated members cannot be used to support family members on the outside of prison. This unfairly pits incarcerated youth against the remaining non-incarcerated family members. Youth are forced to choose whether to ask their families for financial assistance or to ask for assistance and risk disrupting their families. As a result, commissary costs represent yet another cost that destabilizes youth and their families.

Loss of Companionship

What is the cost of the loss of companionship through incarceration? What is the cost of an unhugged hug? What is the cost of an untold joke?

Incarcerated youth may be protectors within their families. They may protect and mentor siblings. In their absence, their family members may be exposed to unnecessary challenges or even dangers. One researcher found that youth who had incarcerated siblings may be increasingly exposed to different childhood risk factors which may negatively impact their development. Youth who themselves may not be incarcerated experience complex emotions regarding the absence of an incarcerated sibling, including self-blame.

Incarceration may also impact any children that the youth may have. Because incarcerated youth are more likely to be incarcerated as adults, any future occurrence where they are incarcerated may have a deleterious effect on their children. In one study, the children of incarcerated parents were six times more likely to be incarcerated themselves.

Loss of Income from Youth

Another cost of youth incarceration is the loss of income or the potential for income that a youth may contribute to their household. Two respondents who were incarcerated as youth had their own children whom they could not support while incarcerated. The effect that this loss of income has on a family can be immediate. According to a 2021 Bureau of Labor Statistics report, 54.4 percent of youth aged 16 to 24 had employment. In New Jersey’s youth prisons, youth aged 16-24 account for 92% of all incarcerated youth. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, some families have become reliant upon their youth to contribute to their finances. The absence of youth income may harm these families. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier in the Missed Opportunities section, youth incarceration may substantially impact future career earnings. As a formerly incarcerated youth matures and attempts to support a family, the baggage of their incarceration may have a ripple effect. It may prevent their families from reaping the full financial benefits of their loved one’s work and contribution to society even after their incarceration.

Instead of investing in securing the futures of our youth, New Jersey has doubled down on wasteful spending on youth prisons. From Fiscal Year 2012 to 2022, New Jersey spent $617,455,000 to incarcerate youth. In FY 2022, New Jersey spent $576,737 to incarcerate a single young person. That figure is projected to increase to $608,095 in FY 2023. In February 2022, New Jersey’s youth prisons were nearly 80% empty, yet they maintained staffing levels as if at full capacity, employing 484 staff. In Hayes in February 2022, there were only six female youth incarcerated. Aside from the emptiness of the prisons and the overstaffing issues, prison guards and administrators are also highly paid. Many earn near six-figure salaries with a captain and superintendent earning over $120,000.

By contrast, from FY 2012 to FY 2022, the Juvenile Justice Commission spent approximately 73% less or $166,424,000 on Grants-in-Aid than it did on youth incarceration. JJC’s Grants-in-Aid include state/community partnership grants, which include “prevention, intervention and aftercare services.”

The most significant costs of incarceration are often unquantifiable. For example, what is the cost of disempowering youth? What happens when formerly incarcerated youth are so broken down that they do not pursue a better future? In this section, respondents explain how youth incarceration propagates feelings of hopelessness, stigma and shame, dehumanization and a lack of faith in the justice system.

Hopelessness

Young people discussed youth incarceration’s general impact on mental health, and particularly, increased feelings of hopelessness. Hopelessness in youth is associated with depression and has been linked to suicidal ideation in incarcerated youth. However, research has shown that optimism in youth is important to positive youth development and causes youth to take steps in the present to achieve future goals, despite perceiving challenges. This type of strategic planning is necessary to complete an education and pursue a career.

Stigma and Shame

Shame is another cost that is not easily measurable but may lead to negative mental health outcomes for youth and their families. Incarceration is often seen as a “scarlet letter” worn by the incarcerated youth and their family and may prevent them from seeking assistance.

Dehumanization

Youth were not meant to be locked in cages. This is evident. What are the consequences when the state treats youth as less than human? Renaldo Chavis discussed the impact of his time spent in solitary confinement as a youth. Although punitive solitary confinement has been prohibited for youth in New Jersey, the six girls in the Hayes facility in February 2022 – the only youth in a facility designed for 48 — were essentially being kept alone like in a solitary confinement setting.

A study of the effects of solitary confinement on youth shows that it may create “depression, anger, obsessive thoughts, paranoia and psychosis and suicide.” Furthermore, there are still provisions of law for youth in New Jersey to be placed in solitary confinement in select circumstances. Youth solitary confinement and incarceration contribute to the deprivation and dehumanization of youth.

Lack of Faith in the System

The ideal youth justice system would – in the words of the JJC about its own commission – “help youth grow and thrive and to become independent, productive, and law-abiding citizens.” However, the youth justice system, as it is, produces negative outcomes for youth from communities of color, producing a lack of faith in the current system. Some respondents articulated that the youth justice system is broken while others articulated that it is working exactly to create the negative result it was designed to create. What is the cost of the lack of faith in the current system?

Julius Morris provided a more historical context and recounted how, when incarcerated as a youth decades ago, he was made to work as a youth in a potato field, apple orchard, chicken farm and dairy, and that communities other than his own benefitted from his prison labor. He believed, “it [was] all a plan.”

Renaldo Chavis previously noted the price gouging in the commissary. Commissary represents a prison industry that is designed to profit off youths’ needs for toiletries and basic food items. This view tends to support the idea that the system is designed to produce a financial result, furthering community distrust.

These experiences speak to a larger distrust that communities of color often have of law enforcement. Surveys of youth from states outside of New Jersey and across the nation demonstrate that Black and Latina/o youth harbor negative perceptions of law enforcement and the justice system as a whole. In one study of 12th graders across the continental United States, Black youth had the “lowest confidence” in law enforcement and the justice system. Latina/o youth had the next lowest confidence in these institutions. The study also found that perceptions of these institutions have continued to decline.

In another study of youth from Southern California, researchers found that while both seven-year-old Black and white youth have relatively positive perceptions of law enforcement, each year that a Black youth matures, their perceptions of law enforcement significantly decrease. The researchers posited that these results stemmed from the negative lived experiences between Black teenagers and their families and law enforcement.

Unfortunately, the views of our respondents and research studies suggest that youth incarceration may be perpetuating a harmful distrust of the system within communities of color, leading to more instability in those communities.

The Murphy Administration Should Develop a Timeline for Closing Its Three Youth Prisons.

To eliminate the myriad costs of youth incarceration, New Jersey must finally close its three youth prisons. Closing these youth prisons will prevent youth from entering a system that is financially wasteful, excessively punitive and not rehabilitative. In 2018, the Christie administration announced the closure of New Jersey’s youth prisons yet these prisons remain open. The time is now for the Murphy administration to make a firm commitment to close youth prisons. Specifically, we urge the Murphy administration to officially announce a timeline to close all of its youth prisons – Jamesburg, JMSF and Hayes – which are failing our youth. In a recent poll of 500 New Jerseyans, 69% favored closing youth prisons and redirecting the savings to community-based rehabilitation programs.

As part of this timeline, we encourage the administration to include a worker transition plan that will match youth prison workers with other positions within the JJC or with other agencies with equivalent salaries. New York provides a positive example of how this transition could occur. Beginning in 2002, the Office of Children & Family Services (OCFS), the equivalent of New Jersey’s Juvenile Justice Commission, began closing the state’s youth prisons, while committing to transition staff to different facilities or agencies. OCFS has closed 26 youth prisons since 2008 with additional youth prisons slated for closure. Furthermore, we urge the administration to repurpose existing youth prison structures to be used for purposes that will elevate and rehabilitate youth. As the Institute advocated in its report, Bring Our Children Home: A Prison-to-School Pipeline for New Jersey’s Youth, the Hayes facility, in particular, could be transformed from a youth prison back to a center of learning.

New Jersey Should Codify Youth Justice Transformation Into Law by Reintroducing and Passing the New Jersey Youth Justice Transformation Act.

Following the Murphy administration’s announcement of the closure timeline, the legislature should work quickly to codify comprehensive youth justice transformation in the New Jersey Youth Justice Transformation Act. Introduced in a prior legislative session, this important bill will close youth prisons, prevent the construction of new ones and invest $100 million into youth community programs that will prevent youth from entering the criminal justice system. The bill will also provide for the development of rehabilitative centers, based in the community, for young people that may need to be kept out of home for public safety reasons. Polling data confirms that investing in alternatives to youth incarceration including rehabilitation, community services and programs to repair harm are widely supported with 81% in favor. Importantly, New Jersey must not replace antiquated large youth prisons with smaller ones as has been recommended by The Task Force for the Continued Transformation of Youth Justice in New Jersey. In the same poll, only 39% of New Jerseyans favored building more youth prisons. Prison construction funnels critical funding away from community-based programs and can tie up limited human and natural resources. New Jersey cannot build its way out of the worst aspects of youth incarceration. Accordingly, the legislature should reintroduce and pass the New Jersey Youth Justice Transformation Act and the governor should sign it into law.

New Jersey Should Successfully Implement the Restorative and Transformative Justice for Youths and Communities Pilot Program and Expand It Statewide.

Instead of investing hundreds of millions of dollars over a decade into youth prisons, New Jersey must make an equivalent investment into community-based alternatives to incarceration. The state should invest in programs that will divert youth from entering the youth justice system in the first place and must create a community-based system of care for youth that have unfortunately caused harm. An example of such a program is the Restorative and Transformative Justice for Youths and Communities Pilot Program which was passed and signed into law in 2021. This bill invests $8.4 million into communities instead of incarceration by creating hubs where youth can receive critically needed services. These hubs will be physical spaces located in the four cities – Paterson, Newark, Trenton and Camden – where youth diverted from entering the system can use restorative and transformative justice principles to address the harm they may have caused and provide healing solutions for the youth and community. It will also be a space where youth who have been incarcerated can receive wraparound reentry services to aid them on their path to rehabilitation. This program is not yet operational; it is in the implementation stage where state and county government are working to determine the counties’ participation in the program.

“[We need] steady and strategic divestment from youth incarceration and reinvestment into community-based alternatives. They are less expensive and more effective than institutions but we don’t want to cheapen our community-based alternatives. We want the same investments in our communities as the state is making in youth prisons.”

FRED FOGG, SERVICE PROVIDER TO JUSTICE-INVOLVED YOUTH

This pilot, once fully implemented, will empower system-involved youth to take control over their process of rehabilitation. It will counter the feelings of powerlessness and inevitability which perpetuate recidivism. Restorative justice programs have been shown to reduce recidivism. Restorative justice programs can also include mental health treatment as a component of their services. In our report, Investing in Youth, Not Incarceration, the Institute highlights how mental health treatment can be added to the restorative and transformative justice hubs through community cafés, community accountability councils and mental telehealth lines. The Restorative and Transformative Justice Pilot Program should be the floor, not the ceiling. It should be a starting point for the state to expand its programming, services and funding beyond the program’s four cities. Once expanded statewide, these programs will be credible alternatives to the current system of youth justice and incarceration.

New Jersey Should Eliminate Outstanding Fines and Fees in All Cases Involving Youth and Eliminate Outstanding Public Defender Fees for Youth.

We applaud the governor for recently signing into law S3319/A5507 which eliminates all outstanding fines and fees in cases where youth are prosecuted in juvenile court. This was an important follow-up to an earlier bill that prevented courts from prospectively issuing fifines in cases after the effective date of the act. In a youth-led report entitled Making Them Pay: The Devastating Impact of Fines and Fees on Our Youth, youth discussed how fines and fees create hardship for youth that may last beyond their incarceration. However, S3319/A5507 applies solely to youth who are prosecuted in juvenile court and not as adults. Youth prosecuted as adults must be included in future legislation. Fines should not be issued to these youth and their outstanding fines should be eliminated.

We also applaud the Governor for recently signing into law S896/A2396 which creates automatic representation by public defenders in juvenile cases and eliminates public defender fees for youth. Lawmakers should go one step further and eliminate all outstanding public defender fees for youth. Eliminating all public defender fees will allow for youth to be represented without the added burden of financial costs on their families. It will also create better relations between the youth and their family. Families that opt to pay for private attorneys will still have the freedom to do so.