By C1 Staff
NEW BRUNSWICK — Law enforcement officials met to discuss ways to help ex-convicts transition from prison to productive lives following Governor Christie’s announcement that his administration plans to open assistance centers for former offenders.
The North Jersey reports that Christie has also introduced sweeping expansions of the state’s court-supervised drug-rehabilitation program for non-violent offenders, lobbied heavily to overhaul bail rules in an attempt to make the criminal justice system fairer to poor people accused of low-level crimes and signed a bill that limits when employers can ask job candidates about their criminal background.
Christie has yet to release details of his “one-stop center” proposal and did not mention it in his budget address last month.
The planned centers, to be placed in Paterson, Newark, Atlantic City, Toms River and Trenton, would be allegedly modeled after a program former Governor James McGreevey helped launch in Jersey City last year.
The Jersey City model starts with drug addiction treatment services in the Hudson County Jail and provides job training and placement, transitional housing and other services upon inmates’ release.
The new centers won’t need special financing from the state budget because they would operate with money from grants and by reallocating resources from existing federal and state programs.