Warren County Commissioner Kern to Governor Murphy: Why Vaccine Mandate for Officers and Not Inmates?

Governor’s Executive Order taking effect today mandates vaccines for correctional police officers

Warren County Commissioner James Kern III sent a letter to Governor Phil Murphy today questioning why everyone in the Warren County Correctional Facility isn’t impacted by Executive Order 283. The order eliminated the weekly testing option for employees in “high-risk congregate settings” and mandated vaccination.  Congregate settings include county correctional facilities and correctional police officers will have until today, February 16, to get their first dose and March 30 to complete the vaccination process. The police unions requested to block the Governor’s vaccine order but it has since been denied by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Text of letter below:

February 15, 2022

Dear Governor Murphy –

I write to you regarding Executive Order 283. After a week of court decisions, it appears that your order will stand, and the matter has no further legal avenues to challenge. With that, I would like to know when you will be uniformly mandating the vaccine for everyone within the corrections facilities, specifically inmates.

According to your spokeswoman Alyana Alfaro, “…the state’s vaccination requirement in these settings will keep a valuable mitigation tool in place, ensuring that New Jersey continues to protect our most at-risk residents.” Using this logic, I would expect that you immediately enact this mandate so that corrections officers can be protected from the unvaccinated individuals within our facilities. Surely based off the court’s ruling, this would be the safest approach for everyone, and you wouldn’t still consider releasing convicted prisoners into society. According to your administration, a mandate would be the only way to protect our officers from the 20% of our inmates who are unvaccinated.

I look forward to your prompt response on this pressing matter. 

James R. Kern III

Warren County Commissioner