N.J. Developmental Centers Brace for Huge Change

TRENTON -- With its imposing, Victorian-era buildings and leafy, college-like campus, the Vineland Developmental Center was in its time a state-of-the-art institution for treating young women with complex mental and emotional disorders.

At its peak in the late 1950s, just over 2,000 women lived at the center. Once there, often at the behest of families that no longer could care for them, they could expect to stay for life.No longer.