Gov. Phil Murphy, talking with his successor, Mikie Sherrill, in the Statehouse on Nov. 5, 2025, has about 10 weeks to see some of his unfinished policy priorities through before the current legislative session ends in January. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
Almost a year ago, Gov. Phil Murphy announced a plan to stop reincarcerating thousands of people for violating the conditions of their parole, a change meant to help them better reenter society and enable the state to close an entire prison.
But a bill was never introduced and the proposal lost momentum, with critics predicting it would endanger public safety and legislators loath to push any controversial measures forward when all 80 Assembly seats were on the ballot.
As his second term winds down, Murphy, a Democrat, says the proposal to avoid reincarcerating technical parole violators remains a priority for him. These are parolees who miss curfew, fail a drug test, move without permission, or otherwise defy their parole conditions.
“That’s something that we’ve wanted to do,” he said. “We want to get it right.”
There are only about 10 weeks left in the current legislative session, though, a tight timeline for turning the proposal into law.
Assemblywoman Shanique Speight (D-Essex), the plan’s biggest legislative champion, declined to comment. Shadaya Bennett, her chief of staff, told the New Jersey Monitor that Speight will introduce legislation within the coming weeks and is working to tweak the text to satisfy critics’ concerns.
About 10% of people in New Jersey’s prisons on any given day are there for technical parole violations, costing the state about $90 million a year.
When Murphy pitched his plan during his annual address to the Legislature in January, he framed it as both a budget issue and a matter of mercy.
Keeping technical parole violators in the community would allow the state to close East Jersey State Prison, he said, with budget documents projecting $30 million in savings this fiscal year and annualized savings totaling $50 million by fiscal year 2027. Returning technical parole violators to prison, Murphy added, does nothing to address the root causes that can land these parolees back behind bars, like addiction, unemployment, poverty, and housing insecurity.
The plan met fierce pushback. Sen. Douglas Steinhardt (R-Warren) grilled parole officials about it during budget hearings in the spring.
Steinhardt told the New Jersey Monitor he fears the plan “rewards repeat offenders” by minimizing the transgressions that result in parole revocation.
“The statutory standard for parole is persistent and serious violations. You can’t revoke a person’s parole unless the violations have been persistent and serious,” Steinhardt said. “By the time somebody’s violated, they’ve been given countless chances to comply along the way.”
New Jersey’s parole revocation rate of about 7% in recent years already falls below the national average of 11%, Steinhardt added. He accused Murphy of being motivated more by money than compassion, pointing to the prison closure savings.
“This isn’t about public safety. This isn’t about prison reform. It’s not about prisoners’ rights. This is a bill about bad government, bad fiscal policy, and at the end of the day, greed,” Steinhardt said. “They take an easy term to hang their hat on — ‘technical violations’ — and tell people that people are being violated for missing appointments or not reporting addresses. But that’s absolutely untrue.”
Steinhardt said he has met with Murphy and his staff to hash out their differences and would support the bill if it resolves his concerns.
“The system can always use tweaks. Society evolves. The criminal justice system evolves,” Steinhardt said. “It’s going to come down to what the text of the bill says, and hopefully the governor’s office really rolled up their sleeves and worked a little harder at coming up with something that is designed to serve its stated purpose, which is to help people on reentry.”
The plan’s supporters said they will continue to advocate for it, in hopes that it will pass before a new legislative session begins in January.
“There is a process for reincarcerating people who commit new crimes if they are truly a public safety threat,” said Amol Sinha, who heads the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. “But simply violating a condition of parole, which may be as simple as missing a day of work or missing a meeting with a probation or parole officer — those are things that are not a threat to public safety, and so people shouldn’t be punished as if they committed new crimes.”
New Jersey Public Defender Jennifer Sellitti said any legislators still leery of acting should consider Democrats’ sweeping successes in Tuesday’s general election, when the party won the governor’s mansion and flipped a handful of Assembly seats now held by Republicans. The outcome was a “resounding mandate for common-sense policy,” Sellitti said.
“When we reincarcerate someone, we’re spending $75,000 a year to house them, to then send them back out into a community with the same problems that they had when they went in. If we can fix those problems while someone is in community with their family, with the guidance of parole officers who want to help people succeed, that’s how we make community safer,” she said.
It’s unclear if Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill (D) would champion the cause if legislation doesn’t pass before the current session ends in mid-January. Her spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment.
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