Social Justice
Reformers call for end to discriminatory pricing in N.J. car insurance
Most drivers might assume their car insurance rates are based on their driving history and safety record. Instead, many insurers use education, occupation, and consumer credit scores to determine rates, charging higher premiums for those least likely to afford them: poor and minority drivers. But a bill now before the Legislature could provide relief. The […]
Activists troubled that N.J. cities sought DEA surveillance of 2020 protests
Activists are concerned about reports showing three New Jersey law enforcement agencies requested the federal government provide surveillance operations during Black Lives Matter protests last summer. The Asbury Park Police Department, Newark Police Department and Essex County Sheriff’s Office all reached out to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in hopes of collecting intelligence on “radical […]
Port Authority’s deal with Amazon violated board’s public meeting rules, report says
A new report claims the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey approved a massive deal for an Amazon cargo hub at the Newark airport through backroom deals with little transparency, and alleges Amazon’s unfair labor practices violate the agency’s code of ethics. Published by Hedge Clippers, a national labor advocacy organization, the report […]
Community investment would protect public more than over-policing, report says
New Jersey communities spend far more on policing than on health and human services, an imbalance that has increased rates of police use of force and incarceration while widening racial disparities in the criminal justice system, according to a new report by New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP), a progressive think tank. Community-based crisis-response and prevention strategies […]
Activists demand lawmakers act to curb police brutality on ‘Long March for Justice’
Cecille Hepburn marched for her grandson, Kashad Ashford, who police gunned down in 2014 after a car chase. Steven Young marched for change, a year after he quit Atlantic City’s civilian review board, which is tasked with police oversight, in protest over its powerlessness. And Larry Hamm marched because marching is what Larry Hamm does. An […]
After N.Y. fund for immigrant workers is nearly depleted, advocates say N.J. fund is too small
Across the Hudson River, immigrant advocacy groups celebrated the $2.1 billion New York allocated for a long-awaited Excluded Workers Fund, available to struggling undocumented residents who were ineligible for federal stimulus checks and jobless benefits. Now that pool of money, claimed by over 300,000 people in the two months since applications opened, is almost gone, […]
Kamala Harris greeted by pro-immigrant protests in Newark, Montclair
Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Garden State Friday, touring an Essex County COVID-19 vaccination site and chatting with preschoolers in Montclair while making a push for increased child care funding. Harris was also greeted by dozens of activists who rallied outside both sites and urged the nation’s second in command to demand Democrats approve […]
Report: N.J. Parole Board too often refuses to release inmates, needs oversight
The New Jersey State Parole Board routinely refuses to release parole-eligible inmates from prison, leaving many people languishing behind bars far longer than sentencing judges intended, the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender says in a recent report calling for more oversight. The 1979 Parole Act requires inmates to be paroled as soon as they’re […]
Acting A.G. takes aim at law criminalizing sexual activity by people with HIV
Acting New Jersey Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck told county prosecutors Wednesday they should exercise caution before using a decades-old state law that criminalizes certain sexual activity by people living with HIV. The 1997 law makes it a third-degree crime for someone living with HIV to engage in an “act of sexual penetration” without the informed […]
Don’t bring Amazon to Newark airport, protesters plead
To a soundtrack of screeching brakes and honking trucks, a group of environmental advocates, Newark residents, and working immigrants held a rally Wednesday to protest an impending deal for an Amazon cargo hub at Newark’s airport. “Every package you order to arrive in just minutes, every click you make — it has a cost. And […]
N.J.’s last publicly run ICE facility will no longer hold migrant detainees
After years of hunger strikes and fiery protests, Bergen County’s controversial, indefinite contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold undocumented immigrants at its jail has come to an end. Bergen County Commissioners approved the move at their Wednesday meeting, giving federal authorities 45 days to transfer the 23 remaining detainees — 22 men […]
Employees over 70 can’t be forced to retire under new N.J. law
Workers who are 70 and older can no longer be forced out of a job just because of their age under a bill Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law Tuesday. The new law (A681) expands New Jersey’s existing anti-discrimination statute to protect older employees and closes what Murphy called a loophole that pushed some workers […]