Sponsored by:
Senator JEFF VAN DREW
District 1 (Cape May, Atlantic and Cumberland)
SYNOPSIS
Requires notification to corrections officers when disturbance occurs in correctional facility.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning disturbances within correctional facilities and supplementing chapter 1B of Title 30 of the Revised Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. The commissioner shall notify each administrator of every correctional facility in this State when a disturbance occurs at one of the facilities.
b. An administrator who has received notification of a disturbance under subsection a. of this section shall establish a procedure for transmitting this information to the appropriate corrections officers in that facility for their use in maintaining security and order in the facility.
c. For the purposes of this section, “disturbance” means an incident in which a considerable number of inmates or employees threaten the maintenance of security or the orderly operation of the correctional facility and includes, but is not limited to, a riot, work stoppage, melee, or fracas.
2. This act shall take effect on the first day of the seventh month after enactment, but the commissioner may take such anticipatory action prior to the effective date as needed to effectuate the act’s provisions.
STATEMENT
This bill would require the Commissioner of Corrections to notify the administrator of all the correctional facilities in this State when a disturbance occurs at one of the facilities. The administrator would be required to transmit this information to the appropriate corrections officers in that facility for their use in maintaining security and order.
The bill defines a “disturbance” as an incident in which a considerable number of inmates or employees threaten the maintenance of security or the orderly operation of the correctional facility and includes, but is not limited to, a riot, work stoppage, melee, or fracas.
Currently, there is no formal mechanism for forwarding information concerning dangerous events that occur at one correctional facility, such as a gang uprising, to the other 13 facilities. This leaves corrections officers at the other facilities at a disadvantage because, while they are unaware of such important information, that same information is being shared quickly and efficiently among gang members throughout the facilities through a sophisticated gang network.
This bill implements recommendation 4 of the Assembly Prison Gang Violence Task Force which issued its final report on December 12, 2006.