The New Jersey judiciary on Tuesday issued a report lauding year one of the state's revamped bail system, but warned that the system will need more money in the near future if it is to continue successfully.

“New Jersey has successfully transformed an antiquated bail system into a modern risk-based system that relies on empirical evidence to better identify the risk the defendant poses if released pending trial,” the report, prepared by the state Administrative Office of the Courts, said.

“Not only does this remediate the unfairness in the old system, it allows for the pretrial detention of the most dangerous defendants without the possibility to post bail,” the AOC said.

The report, required by the bail reform statute to be issued, was written for the governor and the Legislature. It was signed by Appellate Division Judge Glenn Grant, the acting administrative director of the courts. It noted that out of 44,319 defendants arrested in calendar year 2017, 8,043 were ordered held in pretrial detention.

As of Jan. 1, 2018, the new system, according to the report, has led to a 20 percent decrease in the pretrial jail population statewide since a year earlier, and a decrease of 35 percent since 2015.

The report lauded the Legislature's decision to approve the addition of 20 new Superior Court judges to the bench, since detention orders must be decided within 48 hours of arrest, and the hiring of more than 250 judiciary staff to handle the paperwork and investigation behind pretrial detention hearings.

However, Grant warned that the funding for these positions, is insufficient since it is based on one-time increases in filing fees. Funding for the pretrial services program, he said, will start running at a deficit this year.

“The funding of an ongoing court operation through court filing fees is simply not sustainable,” the report states. “Continued success of the Pretrial Services Program requires a stable and dedicated funding stream at an appropriate level through the General Fund, rather than from court fee revenue.”

Both the judiciary and the New Jersey State Bar Association have been consistent in urging that the bail reform system be funded by taxpayers through the general treasury.

As for the law of the risk-based bail system, the judiciary is continuing to consider the criteria that judges should use when considering whether a defendant is to be held. The state Supreme Court already has ruled that defendants are entitled to investigative reports to bolster their arguments that they should be allowed to remain free pending trial, but the court also has ruled that prosecutors can use defendants' juvenile records to make a case for pretrial detention.

The state's voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2014 that allowed the government to radically alter the bail system. Until the vote, courts were required to set monetary bail for any defendant, regardless of the crime. The changes were spurred by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, a Democrat, and Republican Gov. Chris Christie.

The new system is largely based on how the federal courts handle persons charged with criminal offenses, in that it uses a point-based system to determine whether a defendant should be released without having to post monetary bail, or held in pretrial detention.

The only visible opposition to the change came from the bail-bond industry, which stood to lose business when defendants no longer had to borrow funds to post bail.