Almost three-fourths of the 4,177 inmates in jails on the date selected were pretrial detainees. The pretrial detainees included those detained prior to arraignment without commitment papers (5.36 percent of the pretrial population), those detained with commitment papers (10.47 percent), and those incarcerated after arraignment and pending further hearings (84.16 percent). Over 70 percent of those detainees could not post bail. County jail staffs regard New Jersey's new penal code as the main contributor to overcrowding. Other causes, in order of prevalence, were reported to be the lack of a clear bail policy, the increase in crime resulting from economic conditions, the slow processing of indictable cases by courts, the use of county jails as holding facilities for municipal courts, and overcrowding of the State prison system. To deal with overcrowding, every assignment judge should work with other criminal justice personnel to develop an action plan for their geographic area. Specific actions should include assuring that staff of pretrial release units are available on holidays and weekends to assure that bail is set, the trial of all nonindictable offenders within 72 hours after incarceration, and review of bail or pretrial release conditions by a superior court judge. Numerous additional recommendations, extensive appendixes presenting data tables and other materials, and two comments dissenting from this report are included.