Issue Position: Criminal Justice Reform

Issue Position

Phil Murphy believes a stronger New Jersey is one that ensures and protects justice for all -- a fairer New Jersey recognizes the powerful truth of the words Black Lives Matter. Having previously served on the national Board of Directors of the NAACP, Phil has worked with and learned from the world's oldest civil rights organization. Although much work remains, he has placed New Jersey at the forefront of the national fight for fairness in the criminal justice system.

While in office, Phil has worked to address longstanding inequities in the justice system that have disproportionately impacted Black and Brown communities, like making sentences fairer, reforming the way law enforcement and communities interact, and expanding alternatives to incarceration.

Over the last three-plus years, Phil has taken substantial steps to create a more just, fair, and accountable criminal justice system, including:

- Ending a historically unjust approach to marijuana and legalizing adult-use cannabis;
- Establishing the nation's most progressive expungement law;
- Restoring voting rights to those on probation or parole;
- Requiring the Attorney General's Office to handle investigations for all law enforcement-involved deaths, also known as an "independent prosecutor law;"
- Ending mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenses both prospectively and retroactively;
- Increasing flexibility for juveniles facing criminal sentences;
- Banning solitary confinement;
- Expanding the requirement of body-worn cameras to every patrol law enforcement officer in New Jersey and mandating the release of body camera footage; and
- Implementing the first broad-scale reforms to the state's use-of-force policy in a generation.

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