Governor Christie - Crime Will Not Be Reduced Without Reform
Date
2014-07-31
Date Removed
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Trenton, N.J.: Office of the Governor
Abstract
Description
Transcript:
Governor Christie: Nonviolent criminals have not committed any violent crime, small petty crimes, are often kept in jail because they're poor, because they don't have $250 to be able to post bail, and those folks sit in jail sometimes, at least in this state, for an average of ten months awaiting trial when there's really no reason for them to be in jail pending trial. They're not a danger to the community and they're not a risk of flight. They often have families and jobs and homes that they can go back to. Well that's not right either. Not only is it not right because that's not the kind of justice system we should be running, that essentially you run a debtors prison, that for people who are poor that' s the only reason that they have to stay in jail, and the rich violent drug dealers can get out, but poor people who commit nonviolent crimes cannot. That's not a right system to have either and so we want to try to do both at the same time, to fix our criminal justice system so that those folks are not kept in jail simply because they're poor and that violent folks do not get out of jail simply because they have the money to post the bail. So we're going to see what happens tomorrow. I'm bringing the Legislature in. I'm going to give a speech to them tomorrow and I hope that both bodies of the Legislature will vote tomorrow to get this out. It's extraordinarily important because if we don't the crime that we see happening in our cities across this state will not be reduced.
Keywords
Governors - New Jersey, Government and Politics - New Jersey, Press Releases, Ethics and Accountability