The New Jersey Department of Corrections has had a long history of providing labor intensive community service to many of the state's municipalities, state governmental offices, state highways and parks. For years, supervised inmate work crews have provided highway beautification, cleaned the state's shoreline, maintained the state and county parks, worked at environmental recycling centers, maintained the grounds of many state hospitals and developmental centers, provided building maintenance to local municipalities and acted as the tele-response center for the NJ Division of Travel and Tourism. Every one of the Department's twelve institutions provides some form of inmate work detail project.
Some institutions participate in a dozen or more projects.
Additionally, several of the Department's private provider halfway houses also perform some form of community service. Although these projects have saved the state thousands of taxpayer dollars each year, the public is often not aware of these efforts, nor does the Department of Corrections publicize this work in any uniform fashion. Except for the highway detail crews, which display a sign on the side of the bus used to transport the inmates to the site, there is nothing, which distinguishes these work crews as inmates providing a service to the community. Therefore, the public is not aware of the Department's efforts to hold these offenders accountable for their behavior. Governor's Initiative The Governor's Office has recognized the need for the Department to not only be more visible about the current operating projects, but also, to expand the inmate work details program that engage inmates in service projects that benefit communities.