Fast Facts

Economic Opportunity

• N/ECCC has helped over 400 individuals become trade union members. This program has shown that an appropriate, customer-driven training intervention can produce highly competitive graduates.
• Over 12% of N/ECCC graduates have spent time in prison.
• More than 500 service providers have been trained on how to help their clients restore their driver licenses with the help of Getting Back on the Road - Drivers License Restoration Manual.
• The federal poverty level is $17,597. However a full time minimum wage employee in New Jersey makes $14,872 annually.
• 166 clients enrolled in the three-phase New Careers core program so far. They were provided with various services including life skills, job readiness, health education, healthcare referrals and job placement services.
• New Careers placed 86 participants with jobs.
• The average wage of a New Careers participant is $10.32 per hour.
• There are over 400 different reasons your driver's license can be suspended in New Jersey.

Equal Justice

• A Freedom of Information Act revealed that since the Souder Amendment took effect, in 2000, over 189,000 students have been denied financial aid.
• The average reading level for a New Jersey inmate is 6.0.
• Less than 25% of New Jersey prisoners participate annually in academic or vocational programs.
• Approximately 16,000 men and women are released from correctional facilities throughout New Jersey annually. Nearly two-thirds (10,000) of those released are re-arrested within three years.
• The state is spending over $1billion a year to incarcerate and supervise people formerly incarcerated.
• During the time participants were engaged in the New Careers project only 12 returned to prison.
• To date ReLeSe has done intake for more than 882 cases, many of which result in advice/counsel or brief service to clients' advantage. The program has now placed over 130 cases with volunteer attorneys for free representation, 93 of which involved expungement.
• In Essex County, where the Institute has served as facilitator for the local JDAI, the use of detention has declined by more than 50%, from an average daily population of 244 in 2003 to 103 in 2009.

Regional Equity

• The projected reduction in property values in New Jersey due to foreclosures is 6.3 billion dollars.
• There are 179,873 estimated outstanding sub-prime mortgages in New Jersey.
• 35,117 sub-prime foreclosures are expected to occur in New Jersey between the 3rd quarter 2007 and the end of 2009.
• More than 6,500 abusive sub-prime mortgages were prevented last year due to New Jersey’s effective housing law that the Institute helped pass.
• In 2008, 18 East Orange homeowners were approved for supervised home repair loans through East Orange's collaboration with Hudson City Savings Bank. Work on the first home was completed in January 2009.