Six months ago, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ) led a campaign to close the New Jersey Training School for Boys, the state's largest juvenile correctional facility, also known as Jamesburg.

Mission accomplished.

The nonprofit Newark-based organization, which focuses on economic mobility, criminal justice reform and civic engagement in urban communities, said the 150-year-old facility was outdated and lacked the proper rehabilitation services young people need to mature and grow into responsible adults.

It held a rally in June with hundreds of people from community organizations who protested on the grounds of the Civil War-era facility in Monroe Township.

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The Christie administration, which had been studying the idea of shuttering the facility, did the right thing last week when it announced that Jamesburg and the Juvenile Female Secure Care and Intake Facility (also known as Hayes) in Bordentown will be replaced with two newly built smaller rehabilitation centers.

Funding for overhaul of the state's juvenile system will be financed with a $162 million bond. The state-of-the-art facilities, planned to each hold 40 to 72 residents, will be in Ewing and Winslow townships.

"The announcement was never just about closing these prisons," said Ryan Haygood, president and chief executive officer of NJISJ. "This was about transforming a broken system."

In its report, "Bring Our Children Home: Ain't I a Child?" the institute concluded that New Jersey's system of incarceration should be replaced with smaller cottage-like facilities focused on treatment, mental health services, counseling and education.

In fact, Haygood said that in addition to the facilities to be built, New Jersey already has 12 residential programs across the state that are below capacity and can be used now to house some of its juvenile population.

Haygood said the current system is flawed, costly and doesn't reduce recidivism. Too many youths -- disproportionately 90 percent black and Latino -- return to the facility within three years of release.

Statistically, that sobering reality of recidivism looks like this: Of 450 young people released from state youth facilities in 2013, the institute research shows that 79 percent had a new court filing or arrest; 67 percent had a new adjudication or conviction, and almost one-third (30 percent) were recommitted within three years of release.

Former Attorney General Christopher Porrino, who met with Haygood last year to discuss closing the facilities, has been just as vocal about the way in which the state's juvenile incarcerated population can be better served. He's written an op-ed and testified at an Assembly hearing about how the training school is the oldest, most antiquated youth corrections facility in the nation.

Porinno said the facility, built in 1867 to house thousands of young people, is now too large because the Juvenile Justice Commission (JJC), the state agency governing youth correctional facilities, has been successful in reducing the number of incarcerated youngsters. New Jersey has been recognized nationally for reducing the number of incarcerated youth since 2004 and implementing community-based alternatives to detention.

"This complete overhaul of New Jersey's juvenile secure settings is precedent-setting, and will prompt others to follow throughout the country, said JJC Director Kevin M. Brown.

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The number of juveniles currently incarcerated are 257 males and 15 females.

With 68 buildings on 900 acres, Porrino said, it's impractical to incarcerate the state's small number of youth, on average 144, not to mention expensive -- about $300,000 per resident annually from a $44.2 million budget appropriation.

"That's more than four years at Harvard, including room and board, with enough cash left over to purchase a luxury car as a graduation gift,'' Porrino said.

"This is an opportunity to do the socially correct thing and the fiscally responsible thing. It's not often that you have an opportunity to ring both of those bells. In this case, we did and that's why I believe it was the smart and right thing to do.''

pump the brakes

Not everyone is on board with the move. The Communications Workers of America, which represents teachers, social workers and supervisors at the facility, said the state needs to pump the brakes.

"We should really push the pause button in order to seriously and critically examine what the Christie administration has proposed," said CWA New Jersey state director Hetty Rosenstein. "Closing a good facility -- which could be upgraded to an excellent state-of-the-art training facility -- in exchange for the promise of two small, currently non-existent facilities can't possibly accommodate the same degree of services, safety and security."

The NJISJ, though, believes smaller facilities with wraparound services are the best way to serve young people and keep them from returning to a system that has disturbing racial disparities.

Recent statistics from the Juvenile Justice Commission show that of 257 incarcerated young males, 176 are black, 54 are Hispanic and 24 are white, a staggering picture even though Haygood said his organization's report and research shows that black and white youth commit most offenses at similar rates.

Four days ago, the nation honored the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Haygood said set the example for organizing against injustice. His group did the same thing with the juvenile justice system when it called on the clergy, community organizations and the state to unite around this issue.

"To keep that kind of prison economy going at the expense of our children is something that needed to be stopped," said Rev. Charles Boyer of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Woodbury. "If you look at history and the course of this nation, when a beloved community gets together to abolish a wicked institution, God will be on our side.''

That's what happens when people band together.

Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or

nj.com/carter or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL