New Jersey’s correctional officers would get fatter paychecks, prisoner re-entry programs would get millions more in funding, and corrections oversight would be beefed up under the $48.9 billion budget proposal Gov. Phil Murphy announced Tuesday.
The plan, which Murphy detailed during an hourlong address in the Statehouse in Trenton, hints at the governor’s criminal justice priorities as the Democrat heads into his second term.
Some of the increases touched on topics reformers have been advocating for years, like tighter prisons oversight. Murphy recommends expanding funding of the Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson, which is tasked with protecting inmates.
As correctional officer applicants dwindle, the budget plan includes funding to raise correctional officer salaries as a strategy to improve recruitment and retention among the prison workforce.
William Sullivan heads the New Jersey Policemen’s Benevolent Association Local 105, which represents more than 5,000 state correctional officers.
A decade ago, Sullivan said, correctional officer recruitment classes averaged 200 to 225 candidates per class, with four classes held annually and 150 officers graduating per class. Now, recruitment classes average 50 to 60 candidates with just 35 to 40 candidates graduating per class, he said. At the same time, a quarter of correctional officers are eligible to retire, he added.
More funding for salaries “should help with staffing and retention — definitely a positive thing,” he said.
Corrections priorities
Murphy’s plan calls for a 3.7% increase in state corrections spending, with $1.03 billion proposed, up $37 million from the current appropriation. That doesn’t include the New Jersey State Parole Board, which falls under but operates independently of the Department of Corrections.
The planned increase strikes one criminal justice reformer as questionable, given how the state’s incarcerated population…