After residents' protests, Camden County dumps its plan to build a regional jail in Winslow Township.

Protests and objections from Winslow Township residents and government officials were behind a Camden County Board of Commissioners announcement on Monday evening that it would drop plans to locate a regional jail on state land near the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in the town.

Winslow residents have shown up in force at Township meetings to say they do not want the regional jail — Camden and Cumberland counties so far are on board with a regional facility — in their backyard.

"We are respecting (Winslow) Mayor Maria Lawrence and the local elected body's formal request that it not go at the state facility located in the southern end of Winslow Township," according to the county announcement. "We do believe in the concept of a new regional justice complex that focuses on the needs of the occupants, so regionally and as a community, we can cut down on recidivism and center our attention on rehabilitative practices that make our society safer," Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. and Commissioner Jonathan Young said in the statement.

> Read 70and73.com's previous coverage: County jail shutdown: Camden, Cumberland counties will move inmates to regional jail in Winslow by 2031. <

"Because of the nature of the facility, it brings grave concerns from myself, colleagues, constituents and the overall community at large," Mayor Lawrence said in a letter to the county commissioners on Monday. "First and foremost, Winslow already has to bear the burden of having a state institution in the municipality and the challenges that come with it," she wrote in the letter, released on a Winslow community Facebook page.

Lawrence said "this is not an industry the township would like to build on" and that there likely is a better fit within the region that the jail would serve.

Residents and officials in neighboring Hammonton, Atlantic County, also objected to the project.

Cumberland County last August agreed to join Camden County in the Southern New Jersey Rehabilitation and Reentry Center project and the partners are trying to interest other counties to join.

The Camden County jail, a dark building with narrow windows built 38 years ago, sits in the middle of a section of Camden that local officials eagerly are promoting for development.

"Camden County needs to build a new jail," Ross Angilella, Camden County administrator, told Atlantic County commissioners at a meeting in December. The Camden County jail usually has 805 inmates confined, he said.

In announcing their pull-out from Winslow Township, which is in Camden County, the county commissioners emphasized a regional justice complex would bring in more than $1 billion in new construction. The host community — the commissioners said they will seek approval by the local governing body — also will receive a community monetary benefit.

"It will be an economic boon for any town or borough that has an interest in long-term growth and economic expansion. Based on that, the board will do an analysis of new sites in the future that may be a better fit for local elected officials," according to the county statement.   

Angilella said at the Atlantic County meeting that the target for the regional jail opening is in the first six months of 2031.

Projected costs shared at the meeting showed an initial annual cost of $238 million, which includes debt service for construction. The estimated cost for each of the 1,896 inmates is $345 a day or more than $125,000 a year. Comparisons to current costs were not presented.