SENATE, No. 1245
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
INTRODUCED JUNE 3, 1996
By Senators CONNORS, McNAMARA and Bubba
An Act to reestablish the Lloyd McCorkle Training School for Boys and Girls at Skillman and supplementing chapter 4 of Title 30 of the Revised Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. The Legislature hereby finds that:
a. In October, 1991, the Department of Corrections announced it would close the Lloyd McCorkle Training School for Boys and Girls at Skillman which housed the State's youngest institutionalized inmates. These inmates were transferred to already overcrowded community-based residential programs or other juvenile institutions. The school's teachers, counselors and corrections officers were transferred to other facilities or institutions in the department.
b. The McCorkle School served approximately 200 juvenile delinquents, aged 12 through 17, by offering a comprehensive program of basic academic education, vocational and technical training, substance abuse treatment, and counseling in a secure and disciplined atmosphere.
c. Because of the excellence of its program of academic education, the McCorkle School was the only corrections institution in New Jersey accredited by the New Jersey Department of Education and one of only five corrections institutions in the nation accredited by the American Correctional Association and the Correctional Education Association, permitting the juvenile inmates to earn high school credits toward a diploma or GED while serving their sentences.
d. Community-based residential programs, which are not always secure enough to prevent escapes, do not necessarily have the comprehensive range of accredited academic classes, vocational and technical training, drug and alcohol treatment and counseling services that were offered at the McCorkle School.
e. A significant need exists in this State for an institution which, like the McCorkle School, is capable of providing a centralized facility for secure custodial care, education and rehabilitation for certain of the youngest juvenile offenders.
2. The Legislature, therefore, declares that the future well-being and rehabilitation of juvenile offenders in this State is being jeopardized for the sake of illusory budgetary savings and that the McCorkle Training School for Boys and Girls should be reestablished at Skillman.
3. The Commissioner of Corrections is hereby directed to reestablish the Lloyd McCorkle Training School for Boys and Girls at Skillman exclusively as a facility for juvenile offenders. The Commissioner is further directed to restore the administrative, custodial and supervisory functions of this school and to provide for a daily program which shall include, but not be limited to, accredited academic classes, vocational and technical training, and drug and alcohol treatment and counseling services which were previously offered at the school.
4. This act shall take effect on the first day of the seventh month after enactment, except that the Commissioner of Corrections may take such anticipatory administrative action in advance as shall be necessary upon enactment for the implementation of this act.
STATEMENT
The Lloyd McCorkle Training School for Boys and Girls was closed in 1991-92 by the Department of Corrections for budgetary reasons. This bill directs the Commissioner of Corrections to reestablish the school with the same range of custodial care and rehabilitation and education programs that existed before it was closed. This action is based on the Legislature's finding that the Lloyd McCorkle Training School provided an invaluable range of educational and rehabilitative services to juvenile offenders that cannot be duplicated in other settings.
Reestablishes the Lloyd McCorkle Training School for Boys and Girls at Skillman.