Non-violent prisoners in New Jersey will be eligible for parole more quickly.

Inmates may apply for financial aid while taking college courses in prison.

More than 80,000 people on parole or probation are now able to vote, ending a law that stripped former inmates of voting rights until they finished serving their complete sentences, which included time on parole and probation.

And as the state looks to voters to say whether marijuana should be legalized, people convicted of low-level marijuana crimes will have their cases sealed, preventing the convictions from being used against them in the future. Other New Jerseyans who have not committed crimes in 10 years can wipe their records clean, if they didn't commit serious offenses.

All of these changes long pushed by civil rights groups and organizations aiming to reduce recidivism are happening in a state where lawmakers largely ended cash bail, a landmark reform that cut the jail population of those waiting for their trials by 44% in just three years.

“For some incarcerated individuals these changes will be a very big deal; for others they will have little to no impact; but as a trend, it’s very important," said Alexander Shalom, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. "It shows New Jersey continues to be at the forefront of these conversations and is continuing the important work to make our criminal justice system strong and fairer.”

Legislators may soon tackle criminal justice recommendations from recent commissions and studies, such as eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes, for which Murphy expressed support, and helping keep people leaving prison from ending up back behind bars.

Here's how the new legislation, signed by Murphy in the past few weeks, may affect the lives of New Jersey's prison population of 19,000 inmates:

Increases eligibility for parole; provides reentry plan

The "Earn Your Way Out Act," S-761, lets inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses go through the parole system more quickly. Instead of having a parole hearing, a person could be released after a review with a hearing officer and State Parole Board certification.

The law, which goes into effect early next year, will also provide people leaving prison with customized reentry plans that will include information such as substance abuse treatment, psychological service resources and educational and vocational information, said the bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, D-Passaic.

"The majority of the more than 10,000 inmates who are released from prison each year in New Jersey will be rearrested, and two in five will return to prison," Sumter said. "In addition to the direct impact this has on their own lives, it also affects their families, their communities and the entire state. It’s critical that we stop this woeful pattern by making sure that these men and women have the education, job skills and other resources they need in order to be productive members of society after leaving prison.”

Legislative analysts said the price tag of the law was "indeterminate" but noted that annual housing and food costs at state prisons amount to nearly $50,000 per inmate.

Lets prisoners be eligible for financial aid

Certain incarcerated people will now be able to receive state-sponsored student scholarships and grants, after Murphy signed a bill, S-2055, earlier this month. A state-sentenced inmate is eligible if he was a New Jersey resident for more than a year before being imprisoned and the Department of Corrections approves his enrollment in an eligible college.

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“When our students graduate in prison, their families see college in a new light," said Sheila Meiman, director at Raritan Valley Community College. "The intergenerational impact of this program is real and will make New Jersey a more resilient, safer and more economically vibrant state for years to come.”

Prisoners who have access to post-secondary education are 48% less likely to return to prison than those who do not, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, a criminal justice nonprofit.

New Jersey has 476 incarcerated students taking college courses at Raritan Valley Community College or Rutgers University-Newark. Full-time students would be eligible for $2,786 Tuition Aid Grants and part-time students would be eligible for $1,392 grants a year. The law will cost the state between $600,000 and $901,000, according to legislative analysts.

Makes it harder for cops to keep seized property

It is now more difficult for police and prosecutors to keep cash and property seized from individuals suspected of using the property in a crime.

Murphy signed a civil asset forfeiture bill, A-4970, that requires a person to be convicted of a crime before prosecutors can keep property they say is connected to that crime, if it's less than $1,000 in cash or property worth less than $10,000.

Under the previous system, New Jersey could keep a person’s property by showing by “a preponderance of the evidence,” or more likely than not, the property was linked to a crime, regardless of the outcome of a criminal trial.

“Far too often, individuals involved in cases of this nature face the onerous task of reclaiming their property in a system that can make doing so more expensive than the property itself,” Assembly members Nicholas Chiaravalloti, Shavonda Sumter and Nancy Pinkin said in a press release. “This new statute is designed to ensure that barring a criminal conviction, an owner can reclaim their property more readily and fairly.”

New Jersey is now the 16th state to require a criminal conviction in civil asset forfeiture proceedings, according to an analysis by the libertarian nonprofit Institute for Justice. Lee McGrath, senior legislative counsel for the group, said New Jersey should end civil asset forfeiture altogether when an accused person's criminal case is separate from the civil case against the person's property.

“No one should mistake this bill for a comprehensive fix of New Jersey’s shameful forfeiture laws,” McGrath said. “Far too many underlying issues remain unaddressed, including the perverse financial incentives that warp law enforcement priorities to pursue cash instead of criminals.” Local law enforcement agencies keep forfeited property and cash.

In July, the state plans to have an online searchable database of property seized across New Jersey that will be updated quarterly, after Murphy signed a bill, S-1963, this month mandating transparency requirements. The database will include what was seized, the alleged criminal offense, whether the defendant was charged and what happened in the criminal case, among other details.

Revamps juvenile justice system

Juvenile offenders will not pay certain fines as punishment, among other changes to the juvenile justice system Murphy signed into law, S-48, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The law makes post-incarceration supervision discretionary instead of mandatory, limits when underage individuals may be imprisoned and grants juvenile parole decisions to a panel that includes members from the Juvenile Justice Commission. The law goes into effect at the end of this year.

“Over the last 15 years, the Juvenile Justice Commission has implemented a number of groundbreaking reforms that have, among other things, resulted in an over 85% reduction in the number of youths in state custody," said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. "We are committed to using the additional tools included in the legislation signed today to continue this great work and to reduce the racial disparities that still exist in the system."

Changes how the census counts prisoners

U.S. Census officials will now count prisoners at their last known address in the 2020 Census, instead of the district where the prison is, after Murphy signed the bill, S-758, into law Tuesday. The change could shift political power to the primarily urban areas where most people in prison come from and affect how congressional districts are drawn.

“In most cases, incarceration is only temporary. It is unfair for inmates to be considered part of a community where they’ll likely never live as a free citizen,” said Sen. Sandra Cunningham, D-Hudson. “These individuals have personal and professional ties to the community they lived in prior to their incarceration. It is unfair to count them as part of the district which they are imprisoned when upon their release they will more than likely return to the area from which they came.”

Sen. Nilsa Cruz-Perez, D-Camden, added that although Camden County does not hold any prison facilities, 1,652 people from Camden were in state prisons in 2018.

"Those 1,652 were counted as citizens of other counties, adding to the representation of those communities, despite hailing from Camden,” Cruz-Perez said. “Today New Jersey puts an end to the process of unfairly skewing districts and the resulting imbalances in our state representation.”

Ashley Balcerzak is a reporter in the New Jersey Statehouse. For unlimited access to her work covering New Jersey’s legislature and political power structure, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: balcerzaka@northjersey.com Twitter: @abalcerzak