According to recently released federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the annual unemployment rate for Jersey City was 11.1 percent in 2010. That is the highest yearly rate since 1996′s 11.6 percent, and more than double the rate in 2007, when it was 5.5 percent.
Reading through the new report “Crime and Punishment in New Jersey,” one almost has to conclude that the only consistent thing about the Garden State’s penal code is its irrationality.
Every county in New Jersey has set aside a room just like this one; a court guided by the idea that it is more cost-effective, efficient, and humane to treat drug users for their addiction than it is to incarcerate them.
The Friends of the Lifers Youth Corp. this week played host to “Entrepreneurship and the Formerly Incarcerated,” where attendees learned that starting a small business is sometimes a safer bet than looking for work if you have a criminal record.
With the Great Recession forcing more people into poverty, and the courts, demand for legal assistance has been increasing at the same time capacity to provide it has decreased. Northeast New Jersey Legal Services, which provides services to Hudson, Passaic and Bergen counties, lost $2.3 million this year alone.
Security teams at Jersey City’s three institutions of higher education work without campus police forces, weapons, arrest powers, or even handcuffs. Instead they rely mostly on guards, cameras and observation to foster what is a comparably safe environment.
Any person arrested on suspicion he or she committed a violent crime in New Jersey would be required to provide a sample of their DNA to the police, under a proposal currently being considered in Trenton. But not everyone is on board with the idea.
The story told by immigration advocates is one of a flexible jail administration, forced to contend with a situation that is ideal for no one and dispiriting for the people held in its custody.
The program is a bridge between the legal and illicit worlds. The fact that Hyacinth provides drug users with the supplies they need to continue using makes some potential funders and collaborators wary. And the fact that they are operating within the bounds of the law makes some potential clients skittish.
As the recession has kept apace of the foreclosure crisis, job losses have begun to play a larger role in pushing homes into foreclosure. Meanwhile, the damage done to the city’s poorest neighborhoods by consecutive years of high foreclosure rates is now being compounded by real estate investors.
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