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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
Penal Institutions: In contrast to its archaic legal machinery, the State's
penal institutions are as progressive as any in the land. One of the best
features is the system of segregation, classification and individual treatment of inmates. Criminals are classified and put in separate institutions
for men, women and youths, as well as for the feebleminded, epileptic,
tubercular and insane.
Each institution has a classification committee consisting of the superintendent and other officers, including a physician, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a chaplain and the director of education. This committee studies each
inmate upon admission, prescribes a course of personal treatment, and
reports periodically on progress. The advisory committee on penal institutions, probation and parole of the Wickersham Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement in 1931, after describing this system in detail,
commented: "It is clear that there is a plan of institutional treatment,
carried on by a whole State, quite unusual in the United States."
Work is an essential part of the program. The prison industries in New
Jersey are conducted under what is called the "State use system." This
means that goods produced are sold only to State departments or agencies,
and thus do not find their way to the open market in competition with the
products of free labor.
The State has an unusually liberal probation law, under which sentence
can be suspended for practically any crime if circumstances indicate that
imprisonment would destroy the convict's usefulness without giving additional protection to society. Parole is supervised by the State department of
institutions and agencies, while probation is handled by the counties. As a
result, the probation system is highly developed in some of the larger
counties, but is still in a rudimentary stage in others.
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