The Camden County jail on Federal Street in Camden.
Camden County plans to get out of the jail business by 2031 as it joins with other counties in a regional jail run by a state authority on the grounds of the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in Winslow, according to a Camden County official heading the project.
Cumberland County last August agreed to join Camden County in the Southern New Jersey Rehabilitation and Reentry Center project and Atlantic County is now considering whether to be part of the collaboration on the 650-acre Ancora site.
Other South Jersey counties, from Ocean and Mercer south to Cape May, also were invited to join a regional jail, which would allow them to close their county jails, Ross Angilella, Camden County administrator, told Atlantic County commissioners at a meeting last month.
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," Angilella said. The Camden County jail typically has 805 inmates confined, he said.
A regional jail authority, which would be a state entity, would oversee the Winslow complex and would levy property taxes in participating counties, removing the cost and supervision from county government. The project, made possible by state legislation passed three years ago, already has received $30 million in state funding for the planning, Angilella said at the Atlantic County meeting.
Camden County leaders have said little about the project, saying recently that it was "very much a conversation" at this point.
However, Angilella told Atlantic County leaders that the regional jail is a sure thing because only two counties need to agree to join the project.
"I understand that there is a lot of controversy about this," Angilella said in his pitch to the Atlantic County commissioners. Residents and local officials in Hammonton, the Atlantic County town on the border of Winslow near Ancora, have objected to the plans.
Angilella said 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.
"One thing I think you might all agree on is that you need a new jail," he told the Atlantic County officials. "We respectfully make the case to you that coming with us and engaging economies of scale is the cheapest, fastest and best way to take care of this problem."
The jail, which cost an estimated $41 million to build, is about two blocks in Camden from the Walter Rand Transportation Center, which will be rebuilt with new commercial investment around the project.
Removing the county jail from Camden follows the shutdown of the Riverfront State Prison, which was built for $31 million in 1985 and torn down 24 years later. The prison site next to the Ben Franklin Bridge is now being actively marketed by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority for residential or commercial development or both.
"The objective of the South Jersey Rehabilitation and Reentry facility will be to do exactly what its name says. That name was not chosen randomly. We are hoping to rehabilitate and facilitate the reentry of people to stop the in and out of jail," Angilella said.
Angilella emphasized the regional concept would offer economies of scale for the counties that participate. He also said that Camden County now has 90 corrections officer vacancies and a regional jail could alleviate the problem, especially if it were found to be a safer place to work.
He said corrections officers from the jails of participating counties would be invited to work at the regional jail in Winslow. "We are short corrections officers, so there are no corrections officers going to get laid off because you joined this collaborative," he added.
The idea of using the Ancora site to house inmates is not a new one. Last May, the state solicited bids for a $55-million Juvenile Justice Commission Secure Facility on the Winslow property. Agilella said the psychiatric hospital would continue to be at Ancora.
The juvenile complex would include three 5,925-square-foot residential buildings, a 27,132-square-foot office and support building, an 8,904-square-foot gym, and a greenhouse and athletic field, according to a Public Development Application Report filed last October with the state Pinelands Commission.
But some local officials say no more.
A regional jail would be a mistake, Hammonton Mayor Steven Furgione told the Atlantic County commissioners.
"Our residents are deeply concerned," said Furgione, who noted that Ancora is five miles from the town’s western border.
Furgione said Hammonton has emphasized tourism and economic development and moving prisoners back and forth through the town is a "bad look," he said.
Longtime Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson told the commissioners that they may ultimately decide not to join with Camden and Cumberland in the regional jail.
"The commissioners may decide, with the demolition of the old jail, the building of the new jail, how much it's going to be compared to going into this facility," he said of them weighing the costs of building a new county jail against joining the regional collaborative. "Our present facility right now has to be replaced. It is too expensive for us to fix it up. It's a 41-year-old facility."
"You're going to have two counties, Camden and Cumberland, that are going to be there with or without us," Levinson said.
