New Jersey prisons are still sending scores of people into solitary confinement — despite a state law barring the practice in most circumstances, according to a watchdog report released on Tuesday.
State corrections ombudsperson Terry Schuster wrote that his office received an outpouring of complaints from people living in so-called restorative housing units — isolation units within prisons for people who have committed certain infractions, like assault, drug possession or refusing orders — who said they were being kept in isolation for prolonged periods.
“While state law and administrative code prohibit cell confinement in an RHU for any more than 20 hours per day, many people have contacted the Corrections Ombudsperson Office this year to report concerns about how much time they are confined to their cells,” the report reads.
The findings were based on staff logs of residents’ out-of-cell time plus self-reported answers from the general prison population and people confined to RHU cells at four New Jersey prisons: Northern State Prison, New Jersey State Prison, South Woods State Prison and Edna Mahan Correctional Facility.
More than three-quarters of residents in those isolation settings between March and May said they were given “less than an hour out of their cells” each day, despite explicit provisions in state law guaranteeing at least four hours.
“Both self-reported data and official logs showed less than four hours of out-of-cell time offered to RHU residents on an average day, with the notable exception of those housed in the RHU at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility,” the report reads.
Just 2% of respondents at the four prisons in those isolation cells — four people — reported being offered more than the four mandatory hours out of isolation. At all prisons except for Edna Mahan, nearly all people in that form of confinement reported being given two hours or less out of their cells.
The report notes that roughly 750 people on an ordinary day were living in this kind of unit at a New Jersey prison. Spokespeople for the state Department of Corrections and Gov. Phil Murphy’s office did not immediately comment.
“Most people sanctioned to time in an RHU were found guilty of assaulting or threatening staff or other incarcerated people, or possession of a weapon,” the report reads. “But more than 200 sanctions to an RHU were for drug charges (controlled dangerous substances), and nearly 400 sanctions to an RHU were for refusing to follow orders.”
Between January and April, nearly 70% of people placed in those cells for drug-related offenses were in isolation between 91 and 180 days, the report shows. A similar share of people with the same arrangement spent up to 90 days in isolation for disobeying orders, with a reported minimum of 30 days in isolation in that range.
The findings follow a state law signed by Murphy in 2019 meant to severely restrict instances of solitary confinement, which criminal justice reformers and other advocates hailed at the time as an historic piece of legislation. Among other things, the law bars people from being placed in confinement for more than 20 days in a row, or more than 30 days within a 60-day period.
New York passed similar legislation years later, though reporting since the law's enactment last year has sounded the alarm on potential violations.
The report notes that the New Jersey corrections agency rolled out a new policy this July that “rewards good behavior with increased privileges and an eventual return to the prison’s general population.”
The report spells out a series of other proposed changes, however, including doling out fewer RHU sanctions and for shorter periods of time, especially for offenses not involving assault.
