The vast majority of incarcerated New Jerseyans surveyed by a prison watchdog group say they are offered fewer than four hours out of their cells daily, leading the group to accuse the state of violating a 2019 law that limits isolation in prison.
Two out of every three respondents to a survey from New Jersey Prison Justice Watch say they were offered less than one hour of time outside of their cell on a given day, according to the group’s report released Tuesday. Most commonly, people are offered 30 minutes out of their cell, the report says.
“These are not just abstract numbers. They represent real human suffering,” Donte Hatcher of New Jersey Prison Justice Watch told reporters Tuesday night.
Researchers urged lawmakers to investigate how the Department of Corrections is following the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, the 2019 law that placed restrictions on how long people can be held in cells. Under the law, no inmate can be placed in isolated confinement — that’s confinement for 20 hours or more daily — for more than 20 consecutive days, or more than 30 days during a 60-day period. Some vulnerable populations, like people under the age of 21 and pregnant women, are prohibited from isolated confinement except in rare circumstances.
Five years after Gov. Phil Murphy signed it, the law “designed to protect people from torture is still not being implemented correctly, which is unacceptable and an injustice,” said Jim Sullivan, deputy policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.
The research is based on 65 completed surveys from people behind bars in New Jersey prisons, largely from New Jersey State Prison, Northern State Prison, and South Woods State Prison. About 13,000 people are incarcerated in New Jersey prisons, according to the state Department of Corrections.
The report comes a year after the state corrections ombudsperson, Terry Schuster, found that prison officials routinely hold hundreds of people in solitary confinement for months and even up to a year.
In a statement provided by Department of Corrections spokesman Dan Sperrazza, the department said it “unequivocally contests the characterization that the conditions are worse than three years prior or that the Department is ignoring the law.”
There is “no question” the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act has posed challenges for the department, largely because of infrastructure and the disruptive behavior of incarcerated people within certain units, the statement says.
“The law did not consider existing and aging facilities originally designed for detention, the inherent limitations of the infrastructure in meeting the requirements established, and spatial limitations in providing out-of-cell time, programs, and activities,” it reads.
The Rev. J. Amos Caley, a pastor at the Reformed Church of Highland Park and organizer with the prison justice group, said the department is just providing excuses for the slow implementation of the law rather than taking responsibility and improving conditions.
He noted the report was also shared with the governor’s office and lawmakers who voted in favor of the 2019 law.
Every respondent to the groups’ survey said they have seen no positive changes to the isolated confinement conditions in the last three years, and a third of them responded that conditions have worsened, according to the report.
Most respondents reported a median of 210 days in isolation during their time in prison, and ten respondents said they had been housed in isolated confinement conditions for more than four years.
That isolation is having a negative impact on the health of those kept in their cell, with 66% of respondents reporting physical and mental suffering, according to the report.
Paul Boyd recalled his 90 days of solitary confinement in a state prison, recalling how he felt mice and roaches crawling on him during the night. (Screenshot of New Jersey Prison Justice Watch media briefing) Paul Boyd compared his 90 days in solitary confinement to being buried alive in a concrete coffin. With his arms outstretched, his fingertips grazed both walls, and the smell of urine and blood filled the air, he told reporters Tuesday.
“Days blurred to weeks. I lost track of time, of self. The only marker of passing days was the degradation of my body and my mind,” he said. “My muscles atrophies. My joints swelled and screamed in protest with every movement.”
Eventually, he said, the lines blurred between reality and hallucination. He was talking to shadows on the walls and wondered whether he had gone mad, he said. When he was released, he was a shell of his former self, he added.
Prince Alvarado, who was also kept in isolation, stressed the long-term consequences of solitary confinement, like PTSD, self-harm, increased risk of suicide, and a lack of medical care. Prisoners in isolation don’t have access to regular checkups, and their medical complaints are brushed off as attempts to escape confinement, Alvarado said.
“Physical ailments go untreated and psychological suffering is often dismissed as part of the punishment, but solitary confinement is not supposed to be a death sentence. It should not be a place where individuals’ mental and physical health deteriorates to the point of no return,” he said.
Given what the group says is a “clear continuation of the use of isolation” and “general human rights concerns,” they recommend the Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson conduct quarterly inspections of all state correctional facilities. The inspections, which would account for living conditions, adequate out-of-cell time, and access to medical and mental health services, must be made public, the group said.
They also want to see stronger reporting requirements from the Department of Corrections, which the group says only reports isolation statistics for certain housing units. The department should also create oversight bodies for all correctional facilities, starting with New Jersey State Prison, South Woods State Prison, and Northern State Prison.
The statement from Sperrazza says “the maladaptive behavior of some of the population” and staffing issues impact out-of-cell time for some incarcerated people until that situation is resolved. Prison officials continue to advocate for funding to improve conditions of confinement and have secured greater funding over the last three years than in prior years, it says.
“Nevertheless, there continues to be a need for additional investment in infrastructure and room for improvement, and we will continue to advocate for appropriate funding to improve infrastructure and conditions,” the statement says.
