Before George Floyd’s death in police custody on Memorial Day triggered mass protests and sparked a national movement for racial justice—and before the more recent disturbing images of rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over Jacob Blake’s shooting by a police officer—the state’s Commission on Sentencing and Disposition was already working on changing aspects of New Jersey’s criminal justice system.

The commission was created in 2009 by the New Jersey Legislature to conduct a thorough review of the state’s sentencing provisions and to consider recommendations to reform the laws governing the criminal justice system to make it more equitable.