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Former\u00a0inmates who are on parole or probation in New Jersey now have the right to vote but they can\u2019t serve on a jury.<\/p>\n
Wanda Bertram, communications strategist and spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative said even if you only have a misdemeanor on your record, you are currently barred from sitting on a jury in the Garden State.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want formally incarcerated people to have a voice in the society. Everybody deserves to have a voice in the society and return to the process of civic engagement after they\u2019ve done their time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She said it\u2019s counter-productive that \u201cpeople who have seen the criminal justice system firsthand are actually excluded from participating in the trial process for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n Bertram noted it\u2019s hard to argue that serving on a jury is a privilege that is lost when you commit a crime.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think of jury service as something people throw their hands up in the air to be given the opportunity to do. I think of it as a critical part of the criminal justice process,\u201d she said. \u201cExcluding people with criminal records from the jury selection process is actually removing systemically a very important voice in jury deliberations.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Bertram, another area of concern in New Jersey is the felony theft threshold, which hasn\u2019t been changed in decades. The current threshold on the books is $200.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you think about the value of something like an iPhone, if you just commit a very petty theft, you steal someone\u2019s iPhone, that\u2019s a felony, you can go to prison for that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She said if the goal is to reduce prison populations \u201cthere is a reason to focus on some of the less serious crimes first, and I think that for the Legislature to take another look at these felony theft thresholds would be a really good priority.\u201d<\/p>\n She said even though progress has been made in New Jersey people need to realize \u201cwe have a system of mass incarceration that is not going to go away just because of a couple of years of reform.\u201d<\/p>\n The Prison Policy Initiative has published a new report detailing timely and winnable criminal justice reform issues. They are broken down into 8 main categories, including:<\/p>\n \u2014 Expand alternatives to criminal justice system responses to social problems<\/p>\n \u2014 Reduce the number of people entering the “revolving doors” of jails and prisons<\/p>\n \u2014 Improve sentencing structures and release process to encourage timely and successful releases from prison \u2014 Protect incarcerated people and families from exploitation by private contractors<\/p>\n \u2014 Promote physical and mental health among incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people<\/p>\n \u2014 Give all communities equal voice in how our justice system works<\/p>\n \u2014 Eliminate relics of the harmful and racist “War on Drugs”<\/p>\n The report is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can contact reporter David Matthau at David.Matthau@townsquaremedia.com.<\/em><\/p>\n Dave Portnoy, commonly known as El Presidente, is the founder of Barstool Sports. Somewhere along the way, he decided to start reviewing local pizzerias, and the concept took off. Here is every New Jersey pizzeria Dave has stopped in, along with the score he gave them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [carbongallery id=”60f8465eacce557ca06c61c5″<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n‘Excluding people with criminal records from the jury selection process is actually removing systemically a very important voice in jury deliberations’<\/q><\/p>\n
Revisit the felony theft threshold<\/h3>\n
\u2014 Reduce the footprint of probation and parole systems and support success on supervision<\/p>\nLOOK: The top holiday toys from the year you were born<\/h2>\n
Every NJ pizza joint Barstool’s Dave Portnoy has reviewed<\/h2>\n