State Prisons in New Jersey

New Jersey Department of Corrections - Prisons & Inmate Search

New Jersey State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

On January 1, 2026, the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) had 12,471 people in its custody. About 11,000 of them were inside its prisons, including 389 women, and roughly 900 more were in residential community reintegration programs, better known as halfway houses. A few hundred others were held in county jails or in other states under an interstate compact. NJDOC became a stand-alone department in 1976, but its oldest prison traces back to the state penitentiary that opened in Trenton in 1798.

New Jersey’s prisons

Most people in NJDOC custody live in one of nine institutions. The population figures below are from January 2026.

• South Woods State Prison, Bridgeton: the largest, with about 3,250 men
• Northern State Prison, Newark: about 2,100 men
• New Jersey State Prison, Trenton: the maximum-security successor to the 1798 penitentiary
• Bayside State Prison, Leesburg
• Garden State Correctional Facility, Yardville
• East Jersey State Prison, Rahway (formerly Rahway State Prison, setting of the 1978 documentary Scared Straight!)
• Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center, Avenel, a treatment prison for people convicted of sex offenses
• Mid-State Correctional Facility, Wrightstown, focused on substance use treatment
• Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, Clinton: the state’s only prison for women

What happens after sentencing?

Men sentenced to state prison are moved from the county jail to NJDOC’s central reception and assignment unit. For more than two decades that was the Central Reception and Assignment Facility in Trenton, which opened in 1997 and closed in 2021. Women are received at Edna Mahan. During reception, staff complete medical and mental health exams and classification, then assign each person to a prison. It’s a good idea to check the online search every few days during this period, since the location can change.

To look someone up, use the NJDOC Offender Search. You can search by name or SBI number (State Bureau of Identification number), which NJDOC uses as its main ID.

Edna Mahan: from federal oversight to replacement

New Jersey’s women’s prison became a national story after a U.S. Department of Justice investigation found that staff sexually abused women there, and after a violent cell extraction in January 2021 that led to criminal charges against officers. In June 2021 Gov. Phil Murphy announced that Edna Mahan would close. Women have been moved in phases out of the crumbling buildings, including to a satellite unit on the grounds of the former Fauver youth prison about four miles away, while a new trauma-informed women’s campus is planned. Closing Edna Mahan is expected to avoid about $166 million in repairs. On July 15, 2026, a federal judge ended the five-year consent decree that had overseen the prison, after a monitor found its reforms, including body cameras and new investigation rules, were in place. Many of those reforms are now state law under the Incarcerated Women’s Protection Act, signed in January 2026.

Does New Jersey have the death penalty?

No. On December 17, 2007, New Jersey became the first state in the modern era to abolish capital punishment by legislation, and the eight men then on death row had their sentences changed to life without parole. New Jersey never carried out an execution after the 1976 Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to resume them. The last person executed in the state was Ralph Hudson, who died in the electric chair at the Trenton prison in 1963.

Juvenile facilities in New Jersey

Young people committed by a family court are placed with the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission (JJC), which was created in 1995 and is part of the Office of the Attorney General. In January 2026 the JJC had 244 boys and four girls in its secure facilities, 32 young people in residential community homes and 118 on parole. Its main secure facilities are:

• New Jersey Training School, Monroe Township (Jamesburg), a 200-bed facility for boys that opened in 1867 as the State Reform School
• Juvenile Medium Security Facility, Bordentown, for boys
• Female Secure Care and Intake Facility (Hayes), Bordentown, a 48-bed facility

Gov. Chris Christie ordered Jamesburg and Hayes closed in 2017, but they remained open nearly a decade later. The state is now building three smaller, school-like youth facilities in the north, center and south of the state. Construction has started in Ewing and Winslow, with openings expected no earlier than 2027, and a northern site is still being chosen. Youth awaiting a court decision are held in county juvenile detention centers. Juvenile records are confidential, so families should reach out to the JJC directly.

To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the New Jersey Department of Corrections or Juvenile Justice Commission, choose a facility from the list below.

Each prison you click on below will provide specific, detailed information about the facility's: 

• inmate search,
• location,
• contact information,
• directions,
• inmate visitation,
• mail,
• phone accounts,
• money accounts,
• commissary,
• texting and emailing where available, and
• inmate tablet rental where available.