The call came amid federal investigations, allegations of abuse and brutality and mounting protests at a prison complex with a sordid history.
Shut the place down.
Only this wasn’t about the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, which Gov. Phil Murphy declared on Monday will be shuttered amid mounting scandal, criminal investigations and a Department of Justice inquiry into the safety of its inmates.
It was about the infamous Rikers Island, which Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed in 2017 would be permanently shut down within 10 years — to be replaced with satellite jail facilities seeded through the boroughs of New York City.
The deadline for $8.7 billion plan in New York is already starting to slip.
Here in New Jersey, meanwhile, there is no specific timetable and no real plan yet as to how to close, fund and replace a troubled, aging prison in rural Hunterdon County that currently holds approximately 372 women, including 94 prisoners in the minimum security complex and 278 in the maximum security complex.
In a press briefing on Monday, Murphy would only say that the “horrific report” on Eda Mahan released earlier in the day from former state comptroller Matt Boxer on the abuses at the prison was enough for him to decide that it was time to take action.
“That was not the first chapter in the long book of this facility,” he said. “I just made the decision. Enough, we’re turning the page.”
Citing the pace of change at Rikers Island, though, he noted that a shutdown of Edna Mahan will by necessity be a multi-year process. “You can’t just flip a light switch. It’s not an overnight reality,” he observed.
But reforms are needed, the governor added. “And that process has to begin immediately,” he told reporters.
Still, he would not criticize state Corrections Commissioner Marcus Hicks, who oversees the state’s prisons, nor suggest in any way that the commissioner’s job might be in jeopardy, despite mounting calls in the Legislature calling for Hicks to be fired.
“No news to make on leadership,” Murphy said.
The report to the governor found that prison leaders repeatedly failed to enact reforms and were often ignorant of their own policies, or deal with mounting frustration among prison staff at Edna Mahan, setting the stage for officers to severely beat several women during a “cell extraction.” The report said officers used excessive force and filed false reports, echoing details already publicized by prosecutors who have filed criminal charges against 10 officers so far.
The Boxer report itself put a shutdown of Edna Mahan on the table.
It questioned whether the prison should remain open, in view of the lengthy negative history of misconduct there. The report cited experts who had doubts whether the prison could be “saved in a reasonable amount of time.”
The report recommended the prison be closed and relocating its inmates to another facility.
“With the facility being more than 100 years old, it is in any event in need of significant repair and improvement,” it noted.
In addition, the Department of Corrections has encountered difficulty recruiting female staff to Edna Mahan, which is in a rural part of western New Jersey. “A different, more centrally located facility has the potential to address these issues,” the report said.
At a minimum, the report called for the creation of more than one New Jersey correctional facility able to house female prisoners. As the state’s only women’s prison, it said Edna Mahan is unable to effectively separate inmates from staff or other inmates with those they have continuing issues.
The report also pointed to the disrepair of the physical facility at the prison, suggesting to inmates and the staff that “because the state does not care enough to fix the facility, it does not care about the inmates or their behavior, good or bad.”
During legislative hearings, there was testimony about electrical issues and other problems related to the facility’s outdated infrastructure.
In late April, there were reports of mold in the facility’s Hillcrest housing unit, as well as “black sludge found in sinks, drains, toilets and showers, leaking sewage, brown and black water.”
In May, around 200 women at the facility’s Stowe Unit were without heat or air conditioning, hot water or a working kitchen after the power went out for hours.
How to fund a new prison or several new prisons for women, or even how much all of that would cost, is an issue yet to be discussed, especially in an era where there are increasing questions overall about mass incarceration.
Still, Democrats who control the Legislature voice widespread support for the shutdown of Edna Mahan, although those on both sides of the aisle called for the immediate termination of the state’s corrections commissioner.
Sen. Dawn Addiego, D-Burlington, who sits on the Budget and Appropriations Committee, called the decision to close Edna Mahan long overdue.
“The Senate voted unanimously four months ago to call for the transfer of the facility’s inmates, who have been subjected to sexual and physical abuse for years, culminating in the January 11 assaults that led to the indictment of nine prison officials,” Addiego said.
But she voiced particularly harsh criticism for Hicks, who she said “showed himself unwilling or unable to address the cultural and institutional issues at Edna Mahan. She said the Senate voted unanimously to demand Hick’s termination.
“It is time for him to go,” she said.
In the Assembly, Gabriela Mosquera, D-Camden, Gloucester, who chairs the Women and Children Committee, said the abuse and assaults reported at Edna Mahan must not be allowed to happen elsewhere.
“The Assembly will work with our partners in government to ensure the closure of this facility is both efficient and equitable on behalf of the women currently incarcerated in Edna Mahan,” she said.
And Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, sought a federal monitor to oversee the corrections department, as well as an independent public advocate to protect those in state custody or state care.
However, Sen. Kristin Corrado, a Passaic County Republican who has also criticized the administration over its response to the continuing sting of the incidents at Edna Mahan, said the governor and his corrections commissioner failed to hold abusive staff accountable.
“It’s unclear how closing the facility at taxpayer expense will remedy the leadership concerns that will persist regardless of where the inmates are located,” she said. “The building didn’t fail these women. The Murphy administration did.”
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Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL.
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