Media Fact Sheet

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice is a research and advocacy organization dedicated to the advancement of New Jersey's residents and urban areas. NJISJ uses a three-step approach to address the root causes of social and economic disparities in order to build opportunity for New Jersey's urban residents:

Step 1: We identify barriers to social and economic success by gathering data directly from urban residents and public and private leaders.

Step 2: We analyze those barriers through legal, social science and political lenses and search for best practices or model solutions.

Step 3: We attack the root causes by applying our research and analysis to implement cost-effective advocacy and demonstration programs.

To achieve this mission, the Institute operates both advocacy and direct service programs, as we believe that each informs the other, and engaging in both expands our impact. Applying our comprehensive approach, NJISJ has accomplished the following results and outcomes that build opportunity for New Jersey residents:

Economic Opportunity

• Brought together representatives of the public sector, construction trade unions, community-based organizations and the vocational education system to develop the Newark/Essex Construction Careers Consortium (N/ECCC), an innovative, nationally recognized pre-apprenticeship program where nearly 400 women and men who live in urban Essex County have successfully entered the trades.
• Validated N/ECCC as a national training model. The Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University conducted an independent evaluation and rigorous analysis of pre and post-program income using wage data from the NJ Department of Labor. The report found that graduates of the program who were placed in the trades earned on average an additional $8,000 per year and that appropriate training works effectively for low-skilled individuals actively seeking employment.
• Developed, in partnership with the courts, an innovative License Restoration Program, by which people with fines in multiple localities are accorded consolidated payment plans and conditional licenses.
• Trained more than 500 service organizations and agencies statewide on how to help their clients restore suspended driver's licenses by using our license restoration manual "Getting Back on the Road." This program breaks the "can't drive because can't pay, can't pay because can't work, can't work because can't drive" cycle by training attorneys and social service providers statewide to help drivers get back on the road and into the workplace.
• Created a New Truck Driver Program in collaboration with the Commissioners of Banking and Insurance, and Labor and Workforce Development, the Newark One Stop Career Center, the Newark Alliance and the Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers. The program combines training, supervision, and mentorship to serve as an acceptable alternative to the two-year experience required by insurers of trucking companies, so that new Commercial Driver's License holders are able to access this job opportunity.

Equal Justice

• Conceptualized and implemented the New Jersey Prisoner Reentry Roundtable, a year-long series of discussions among 86 state leaders in the public, business, academic, non-profit, philanthropic, and other sectors that succeeded in putting the profound needs confronting ex-offenders squarely onto the state policy map.
• Developed the New Careers Project, an innovative transitional jobs and permanent job-placement program for ex-offenders in Newark, the state's most populous city. This program is the centerpiece of an unprecedented initiative, bringing together the state attorney general, mayor of the state's largest municipality, and multiple community partners to put ex-offenders to work. To date, 166 clients have enrolled in the three-phase New Careers core program and were provided with various services, including life skills, job readiness, health education, healthcare referrals and job placement services. New Careers has placed 86 participants in permanent jobs at an average wage of $10.32 per hour.
• Created the Second Chance Campaign of New Jersey, the first and only statewide prisoner reentry coalition, calling for reform on such issues as the prison phone surcharge, felony drug ban, in-prison education and collateral sanctions.
• Produced widely relied upon research on subjects from prisoner reentry to employment barriers: definitive reports on collateral sanctions that bar ex-offenders unnecessarily from gainful employment, and a county "Smart Book", the authoritative guide for people looking for social services to get to work and stay out of prison.
• Contributed to the state policy conversation regarding the challenge of youth and gangs by both producing a conclusive whitepaper and an accessible and widely viewed documentary film, "Moral Panic". This film has been presented at a national film festival and to national think tanks, as well as community audiences comprised of gang members, law enforcement, funders, law students, families, school children and government officials.
• Founded ReLeSe (Reentry Legal Services), the first program in the country that pairs ex-offenders with pro bono counsel to address the multiple civil legal needs attendant to reentry. To date, ReLeSe has done intake for more than 882 cases, many of which resulted 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.

Regional Equity

• Advocated for specific protections for homeowners facing foreclosure. Thousands of New Jersey residents will benefit from the Mortgage Stabilization and Relief Act, which was signed by the Governor on January 9, 2009. The Institute gave testimony on the implications of the law.
• Spearheaded an advocacy effort that led to the state's anti-predatory lending legislation, ultimately supported by both consumer and industry groups, to curb abusive lending practices while also ensuring access to responsible forms of credit.
• Helped establish a home repair loan program to address the need for affordable credit products for responsible homeowners. In 2008, 18 East Orange residents were approved for supervised home repair loans through the City of East Orange's collaboration with Hudson City Savings Bank. Work on the first homes was completed in the spring of 2009, and the repayment experience in this portfolio matches that of the bank as a whole.

Legal Advocacy

• Helped to bring the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative to Essex County, our state's most urban and populous county. This nationally cited program has reduced the number of juveniles detained in jail by 53% while increasing court appearances and reducing re-offense rates. Less jail, more safety.
• Served, as consultant to the Governor's Office, as the principal author of a widely acclaimed, 243-page statewide child welfare reform plan, the implementation of which has improved the lives of countless of our state's most vulnerable children and families.
• Developed the state's first Community Court, soon to launch in the state's largest city, to stop the revolving door of low-level offending by combining reasonable punishment with community and social services designed to address the social realities underlying criminality.
• Secured unanimous victories in the New Jersey Supreme Court: (i) precluding juveniles arrested on status offenses from being locked up - a practice both illegal and demonstrably counterproductive; and (ii) doubling the pool of criminal defendants eligible for our state's drug court program, which has a proven record of success in markedly reducing recidivism by breaking the cycle of addiction and criminality.