(TRENTON) – Assemblywoman Joan Quigley and Kearny Mayor Alberto Santos on Monday said they look forward to the state finally moving sex offenders out of the Hudson County Jail in Kearny.
During Monday’s Assembly Budget Committee hearing, the Department of Corrections explained how the sex offenders will be moved by mid-May.
“When these sex offenders were moved there in 2000, it was supposed to be temporary, but of course temporary soon unacceptably turned into an entire decade, much to our endless frustration,” said Quigley (D-Hudson). “The jail was never a secure enough facility for these sex offenders and we look forward to finally seeing them moved to a more adequate facility.”
“This jail was never an appropriate place for these individuals,” Santos said. “I look forward to the state finally moving these sex offenders to a proper facility, for the security not only of Kearny residents, but all New Jerseyans.”
More than 150 sex offenders are housed at the facility. They’ve completed their prison sentences but are considered too dangerous to be released. The county filed a lawsuit to prevent the sex offenders from being placed there in July 1999, but in September 2000 then-Gov. Christie Whitman invoked emergency powers to keep them at the jail.
The county, joined by Kearny, re-filed a lawsuit in late 2008, which led to an appellate court ruling that the sex offenders could no longer be kept at the Hudson County facility on the premises of an emergency and that the offenders had to be relocated within a year.
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