New Jersey prisons flagrantly flout law limiting solitary confinement, watchdog finds

New Jersey corrections officials routinely hold hundreds of people in solitary confinement for months and even up to a year, in violation of a 2019 state law that limits how long prisons and jails can isolate people, according to a new watchdog report released Tuesday.

On any given day, about 750 people are living in isolation in prison “restorative housing units,” where the state Department of Corrections places people for disciplinary infractions, state Corrections Ombudsperson Terry Schuster found in his report.

While most who get sent to solitary have been found guilty of assault, threats, or possession of a weapon, hundreds land there for far less serious charges, such as drug offenses or refusing to follow orders, Schuster and his investigators found. Most leave their cells for less than an hour a day for daily necessities like showering, medical appointments, and recreation, the report notes.

All of those findings violate the state’s Isolated Confinement Restriction Act. That 2019 law prohibits prisons and jails from holding someone in solitary for more than 20 hours a day, more than 20 consecutive days, or more than 30 days during a 60-day period; requires staff to give people in solitary at least four hours outside their cells daily; and declares solitary confinement so psychologically “devastating” that it “should only be used when necessary.”

“Lawmakers considered this at great length and determined that the standard of decency in this state has evolved and that solitary confinement should not happen anymore,” Schuster said. “People were reaching out to us about their out-of-cell time. Our goal was to determine: Was this a systemic issue, and how many people were experiencing it? And what we’ve found is evidence that the law is being violated.”

Spokespeople for the Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment.

“So many loopholes to keep you isolated”

New Jersey’s Isolated Confinement Restriction Act came three years after former President Obama restricted solitary confinement in federal prisons.

Both measures were intended to protect the mental health of those behind bars, where people with mental health disorders already are disproportionately represented and where the system routinely fails to meet their treatment needs, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

The United Nations also has denounced prolonged solitary confinement as “state-sanctioned torture.”

Amos Caley, a pastor, prisoner advocate, and New Jersey Prison Justice Watch’s steering committee chairman, cited that U.N. declaration in calling Schuster’s report “groundbreaking.” Caley said the Department of Corrections has effectively found that people can be tortured legally for refusing to obey orders.

“You can call it a ‘restorative housing unit’ if you want, but ultimately if it’s a site of mental degradation to the point of torture, we need much, much stronger regulations and data collection around it,” Caley said.

LaShawn Fitch has been incarcerated since 2014 at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, where he’s also director of the Inmate Legal Association.

Restrictions on solitary confinement “exist on paper, just like criminal justice reform exists on paper,” Fitch said. “But solitary confinement never left. They just have new names for it.”

Beyond restorative housing, people can also be isolated in “emergency housing” for staff to investigate security concerns, “transitional housing” for people being moved to another facility or unit, “medical isolation” when contagions sweep through facilities, and “pre-hearing detention” for those awaiting disciplinary or other hearings. All have time limits — which corrections staff often ignore, Fitch and Caley said.

“Emergency” housing placement is supposed to last no longer than 72 hours, Fitch said.

“But that 72 hours can turn into a month, because they say: ‘Well, you fell on a holiday’ or ‘you fell on a weekend’ or ‘we didn’t get the paperwork.’ There are so many loopholes to keep you isolated,” Fitch said. “They’re really getting away with it.”

Caley echoed that.

“One of the things that we see is each facility has certain kinds of hair-trigger responses that will create emergency lockdown conditions, which is actually an effective circumvention of the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act,” Caley said.

Schuster conceded that “barriers,” such as staff shortages and unexpected daily disruptions, can drive corrections staff to hold people in isolation longer than the law allows.

To leave their cells, people on restorative housing units must be handcuffed and escorted by at least two staff, and to leave their units for an appointment, they must be strip-searched, according to his report. Any staffing shortage on a shift or at a particular facility then might make those heightened security rules impossible to follow and drive staff to cut out-of-cell time.

Other disruptions, such as late medication distribution, a fight, or a medical emergency, also can result in shortened or canceled out-of-cell time, Schuster said.

Making matters worse, conditions in restorative housing units can be terrible, Fitch said. That’s especially true at New Jersey State Prison, a maximum-security facility that was built in the 1830s and is the state’s oldest lockup. Even general population cells there can be uninhabitable and feel “like a shoebox,” Fitch added.

“Everything’s rusted, there’s infestion, like rodents, insects, things like that, that already weigh on one’s mental health,” he said. “I’m not that tall. I’m only 5’7. But like I could touch the ceiling and both my walls without jumping, without anything. So you’re really confined, and this is just the norm.”

Recommendations for change

Schuster and his staff began investigating last March.

They did unannounced inspections at the four prisons that have restorative housing units (New Jersey State Prison, Northern State Prison in Newark, South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, and Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton), surveyed people living in restorative housing, and reviewed prison data and logs of out-of-cell time.

They found that 1,775 people were found guilty of disciplinary offenses between January and April, and most — 1,029 — were placed in restorative housing as punishment.

In July, the state Department of Corrections took a step toward reducing its population in solitary by adopting a new incentive policy that rewards the good behavior of those living in restorative housing with increased privileges and a quicker return to the general population, according to Schuster’s report.

But that falls far short of what officials should be doing, Caley said. The system too often punishes rule-breakers by taking away positive things proven to improve behaviors behind bars, such as recreation, rehabilitative programs, and other out-of-cell time, and phone and visiting privileges, he added.

“If it’s going to be a Department of Corrections and not a Department of Successive Levels of Brutality and Punishment, we ultimately have to come up with corrective instruments that are effective at correcting,” Caley said. “We need to see a commitment to an actual culture change.”

Schuster recommended several changes to ensure prisons comply with the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, including:

• Setting and monitoring performance goals on out-of-cell time.
• Placing fewer people in restorative housing units, especially for non-assaultive behavior. A smaller population would reduce the time and staff needed to securely escort people when out of their cells and reduce opportunities for assaults and fights to occur, the report noted.
• Scheduling back-up out-of-cell times in restorative housing units in case unexpected disruptions cause staff to shorten or cancel out-of-cell time.
• Curbing the use of disciplinary sanctions that remove recreation and other out-of-cell time for people already living in restorative housing. Other responses, like drug diversion programs, conflict mediation, and counseling, are better, Schuster noted.
• Improving staff retention in restorative housing units. Getting assigned to a restorative housing unit would be more attractive to staff if they got hazard pay or quicker promotions for working there, Schuster suggested.