March 28, 2010 (Kearny, NJ) Civilly committed sex offenders who are currently being detained in the Hudson County Jail in South Kearny will be moved by May 2010 to Woodbridge. The Department of Corrections was forced to move the sex offenders under a court order.

The Township of Woodbridge did receive a major concession from the State of New Jersey in exchange for the acceptance of the sex offenders to the population of the East Jersey State Prison, the closure of an outpatient Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center which treats eighty sex offenders. It is far more dangerous to the public to have outpatient sex offenders visiting Woodbridge than to have an additional 150 civilly committed sex offenders incarcerated in the high security section of the East Jersey State Prison.



Mayor Alberto Santos and council members have long opposed the housing of civilly committed sex offenders in the Hudson County Jail in South Kearny. Although no civilly committed sex offender has ever escaped from the jail facility, local politicians have opposed their housing in South Kearny and sued the State to remove the civilly committed prisoners from the facility. Let's hope that the State does not decide to move the outpatient Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center to Kearny. That would be an ironic twist to the battle to remove the sex offenders from South Kearny.

The Hudson County Jail has been in the news of late also with the transfer of Immigration detainees from the Varick Federal Detention Center in New York City to the Hudson County Correction Facility in South Kearny. A reported 300 Immigration and Custom Enforcement detainees were moved from the Varick facility to the Hudson County Jail facility. Members of the Detention Watch Network held a vigil outside the Hudson County Jail in protest of the closure of the Varick facility and the transfer of the detainees to Hudson County.

The immigration detainees also complained that the move to South Kearny from New York made it more difficult for family and attorneys to visit them. Detainees also complained that calling from the Hudson County Correctional facility costs more than it did from the Varick Street facility.