New Jersey has a Statewide program of Pretrial Intervention (PTI) as an alternative to prosecution, trial and conviction of crimes and offenses. This supervisory treatment should ordinarily be limited to people who have not previously been convicted of any criminal offense under any state or Federal law.

Pretrial intervention is meant to:

• Provide applicants with opportunities to avoid ordinary prosecution by receiving early rehabilitative services or supervision, when such services or supervision can reasonably be expected to deter future criminal behavior by an applicant; or
  
• Provide an alternative to prosecution for applicants who might be harmed by the imposition of criminal sanctions, when PTI can be expected to serve as sufficient sanction to deter criminal conduct; or
  
• Provide a mechanism for permitting the least burdensome form of prosecution possible for defendants charged with "victimless" offenses; or
  
• Ease the backlog in criminal courts in order to focus criminal justice resources on matters of serious criminality and severe correctional problems; or
  
• Deter future criminal or disorderly behavior by an applicant in a program of supervisory treatment.

• Amenability to correction;
  
• Responsiveness to rehabilitation; and
  
• The nature of the offense.

Procedures
If the prosecutor consents and the PTI program director recommends PTI in writing, a judge may postpone all further proceedings against an applicant and refer the applicant to an approved program of supervisory treatment.

The following criteria are considered in deciding whether PTI is appropriate:

• The nature of the offense;
  
• The facts of the case;
  
• The motivation and age of the defendant;
  
• The desire of the complainant or victim to forego prosecution;
  
• The existence of personal problems and character traits which may be related to the applicant's crime and for which services are unavailable within the criminal justice system, or which may be provided more effectively through supervisory treatment and the probability that the causes of criminal behavior can be controlled by proper treatment;
  
• The likelihood that the applicant's crime is related to a condition or situation that would be conducive to change through his participation in supervisory treatment;
  
• The needs and interests of the victim and society;
  
• The extent to which the applicant's crime constitutes part of a continuing pattern of anti-social behavior;
  
• The applicant's record of criminal and penal violations and the extent to which he may present a substantial danger to others;
  
• Whether or not the crime is of an assaultive or violent nature, whether in the criminal act itself or in the possible injurious consequences of such behavior;
  
• Consideration of whether or not prosecution would exacerbate the social problem that led to the applicant's criminal act;
  
• The history of the use of physical violence toward others;
  
• Any involvement of the applicant with organized crime;
  
• Whether or not the crime is of such a nature that the value of supervisory treatment would be outweighed by the public need for prosecution;
  
• Whether or not the applicant's involvement with other people in the crime charged or in other crime is such that the interest of the State would be best served by processing his case through traditional criminal justice system procedures;
  
• Whether or not the applicant's participation in pretrial intervention will adversely affect the prosecution of codefendants; and
  
• Whether or not the harm done to society by abandoning criminal prosecution would outweigh the benefits to society from channeling an offender into a supervisory treatment program.

• Supervisory treatment may occur only once with respect to any defendant.
  
• Supervisory treatment is available to a defendant whether or not the defendant contests his guilt of the charge or charges against him.