What happened to you at Jamesburg was not okay.

The New Jersey Training School. Nobody calls it that. It's Jamesburg, seven cottages off North State Home Road in Monroe Township, the oldest and biggest juvenile lockup the state has. Since January 2024 more than 150 men have sued New Jersey over what guards, counselors and teachers did to them there, and the Supreme Court has sent every one of those cases to a single judge in New Brunswick. If a judge sent you to Jamesburg as a kid, any year from the 1970s on, and something that happened there has never let go of you, this page is about you.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

A judge sent you there. That is every single person this page is for. Being locked up then has no bearing on your right to ask now.
You never told anyone. The 50 men who filed in January 2024 carried it for twenty, thirty, forty years first, and a few of them go back to the Jamesburg of the 1970s.
It was decades ago. That matters less than you'd think: New Jersey tore up its old deadline law in 2019, and anyone born in 1971 or later is still inside the new one. Details below.
You got in trouble again after you left, maybe more than once, and there's a record now. So what. That is not what a lawyer is looking at.
Maybe you were 18, 19, 20 when it happened; Jamesburg held young men up to 23. There is a route for adults too. It's shorter, so ask sooner.
You're a mother, a partner, a brother asking for someone who won't pick up the phone himself. Reach out anyway. Plenty of people do.

The Jamesburg lawsuits: what the public record says, and when

None of what's below is ours. It is the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, a federal judge, the Supreme Court of New Jersey, the orders of the Middlesex County judge who now runs the consolidated cases, the State's own lawyers, and the reporters who read the filings. Every line links to where we found it. Where the word is allegation, that is the word we use. The State has denied the claims and asked for a jury, and no court has decided any of them.

January 2010

The Justice Department's first national survey of youth in custody put the New Jersey Training School on its list of 13 facilities with high rates of sexual victimization. Of the boys surveyed there, 23.3 percent reported sexual victimization in the past year, almost all of it involving staff, against 12.1 percent nationally. Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 228416.

March 26, 2018

A federal judge in Trenton let a former Jamesburg resident's negligent hiring, retention and supervision claims go forward against the Juvenile Justice Commission. The opinion records that a staff member, Karen Selmon, pleaded guilty in September 2015 to criminal sexual contact with him under N.J.S.A. 2C:14-3b, after another resident reported it. The complaint alleged the State knew she had been fired from another facility for a sexual relationship with a resident; the court found that allegation too thin, as to the superintendent personally, to keep him in the case. Javelle S. v. N.J. Juvenile Justice Commission, D.N.J. No. 17-3879.

January 17, 2024

Fifty men sued the State of New Jersey in Superior Court, Middlesex County, over abuse at Jamesburg from the 1970s into the 2010s. The complaint describes strip searches that were not searches, rapes, contraband offered for silence and punishment threatened for reporting. The Attorney General's office answered that the allegations would be investigated swiftly and thoroughly, and the Governor's, that the facility would be closed responsibly. Associated Press.

February 2024 to March 2025

Five more group complaints followed. The next one, 25 men, was filed February 29, 2024; two came within days of each other that April, five men on the 22nd and 20 on the 25th; then 28 men on January 23, 2025, and 27 more on March 17 of that year. That's 155 Jamesburg plaintiffs across six filings, most in Middlesex County. The State's lawyers, opposing consolidation, counted roughly 90 alleged abusers in the first complaint alone and up to 311 across all ten suits then pending. State of New Jersey's opposition letter, April 21, 2025.

May 28, 2025

The Supreme Court of New Jersey ordered every pending and future state-court suit alleging sexual assault of juveniles in state-run detention facilities designated as multicounty litigation and transferred to the Law Division in Middlesex County, before Judge Bruce J. Kaplan. The Notice to the Bar is dated June 4 and was published June 18, 2025. NJ Courts, Notice and Order.

October 30, 2025

Judge Kaplan's third case management order limited the first bellwether group to Jamesburg. Forty cases are to be picked, sorted by what each plaintiff alleges, and worked up toward trial ahead of everyone else. The order's caption shows the State has filed third-party claims against John Does 1 to 100, its own unnamed former employees. Case Management Order #3, MID-L-3913-25.

April 20, 2026

New Jersey Monitor counted about 350 suits over abuse of children in state custody, roughly 250 of them against the Youth Justice Commission and consolidated in Middlesex. In an answer filed the previous September the State's lawyers largely denied the claims and demanded a jury trial. The State's own budget documents, the paper reported, showed a median settlement for such claims of $975,000 as of March 2026. New Jersey Monitor.

June 12, 2026

Case Management Order #4 moved the bellwether dates around. The two sides each pick their 16 Jamesburg cases by August 17, 2026 (the court adds eight of its own), paper discovery in that group runs to March 5, 2027, and the depositions have to be done by September 16, 2027, which is a long way off, so nobody should be timing anything by it. For scale: 284 cases on the court's own list as of May 19, 2026. Case Management Order #4, MID-L-3913-25.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from June 12, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who answers for what happened at Jamesburg

The State of New Jersey. Not a guard, not a counselor, the State. Jamesburg has been run by the Juvenile Justice Commission since 1995, renamed the Youth Justice Commission, and by the Department of Corrections before that, and in every one of the consolidated complaints the State is the only defendant. The theory is plain enough. A government that locks a child up owes him the ordinary care of watching the adults it puts in charge of him, and the complaints say the State hired, kept and failed to supervise people it should not have, and never built the policies that would have caught them. The State has denied that and asked for a jury.

What did the State know? Some of it is not in dispute, because it is public. In January 2010 the Justice Department listed Jamesburg among 13 facilities nationally with high rates of sexual victimization, nearly one boy in four. In 2018 a governor said the place should close. It is still open. Federal courts have already let negligent-supervision claims against the Commission go forward on the strength of a 2015 guilty plea by a staff member. Whether the State's knowledge across 40 years adds up to negligence is the question the bellwether trials are built to answer.

One practical thing. A state cannot go bankrupt, and there is no claims fund, no bar date and no settlement deadline in this litigation as of this writing. The cases are individual by law; nobody can file yours for you, and nobody's case closes the door on yours.

Your deadline: the New Jersey statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse at a state juvenile facility

New Jersey rewrote this in 2019, and the rewrite is permanent. Under N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2a, a claim for sexual abuse of a child can be filed any time before the person turns 55, or within seven years of the day they reasonably connected what happened to the harm it did, whichever is later. That is why we ask whether you were born in 1971 or later: if you were, you are under 55 today and the age rule alone keeps the door open, whatever year you were at Jamesburg. Born before 1971, and it turns on the seven-year discovery question, which is a fact a lawyer walks through with you, not a date on a calendar.

One thing people get told that is wrong: that you missed the 90-day notice you normally have to give before suing the State. You didn't. The Tort Claims Act notice doesn't apply to these claims; the 2019 law took it out.

If you were 18 or older when it happened, and Jamesburg held young men up to 23, the rule is seven years from discovery. Shorter, and it makes the call more urgent, not less. Either way the answer takes a conversation, not a guess. Also: the revival window. People bring it up. New Jersey opened one in December 2019, shut it in November 2021, and it was for claims the old law had already killed. Most Jamesburg claims never needed it, because the age rule reaches them. Where that line falls is a lawyer's job to draw, not yours.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You have never said it out loud. Not to a spouse, not to anyone.
You don't have a word for what happened, and you're half convinced it wouldn't count. The court's own order sorts the cases four ways, and the least of the four is groping.
It was a resident, not staff. Tell us anyway; whether the State answers for that is a lawyer's question, not yours.
You did adult time after Jamesburg. Plenty of the men who filed did.
You were at Skillman, or Bordentown, or a residential home instead. Same litigation, same judge.
You live in New York or Pennsylvania now, or further. The firm we work with handles New Jersey cases wherever you are.

Facilities covered

The New Jersey Training School at Jamesburg, North State Home Road, Monroe Township, open since 1867 and still holding about 200 boys and young men aged 12 to 23 as of 2024 · the Lloyd McCorkle Training School at Skillman, the other New Jersey Training School, closed in the early 1990s · the Juvenile Medium Security Facility and the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility at Bordentown · the residential community homes the Commission ran, including Voorhees, Albert Elias and Costello Prep. All of them are inside the same Middlesex County litigation. If your years were somewhere else in state custody, answer the questions and say so on the call.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue the State of New Jersey for abuse at Jamesburg?

More than 150 men already have, in Superior Court, and since May 2025 every such case goes to Judge Bruce Kaplan in Middlesex County. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and what happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

How long do I have to file a Jamesburg claim?

Longer than most people fear. The 2019 law gives you until you turn 55, or seven years from when you connected the harm to what happened, whichever is later, and you don't have to send the State a 90-day notice first. It's all laid out above, under your deadline. If you were born in 1971 or later, this part isn't your problem.

Is Jamesburg closed?

No. Governor Christie announced in 2018 that it would close, and it was still holding about 200 boys when the first suit was filed in January 2024. The Attorney General has said the State will close it, and the girls' facility at Bordentown, by 2028. Open or closed makes no difference to a claim about what happened there.

Is the Jamesburg lawsuit a class action?

No, and it can't be; the 2019 law says these cases proceed individually. Multicounty litigation is case management: one judge, shared discovery, a bellwether group of 40 Jamesburg cases tried first. Your claim is still your own, filed in your own name or initials, and nobody can join you to anything without you.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Nothing, here. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed New Jersey attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.