Watchdog: New Jersey prisons face deepening staffing crisis, growing humanitarian concerns
The New Jersey Department of Corrections has made progress on long-standing problems in the state’s prisons but still has a long way to go, especially when it comes to persistent staffing shortages, according to the latest annual report from the state corrections watchdog.
Many of the 1,100 inmates interviewed by staffers from the state Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson complained about the same issues, including their personal items and money disappearing, inconsistent or inadequate medical care, problems getting in touch with friends and family back home, and squalid conditions inside the prison facilities.
The agency also hosted eight town halls for prisoners’ families, where one issue topped them all: the great difficulty visiting incarcerated loved ones, agency head Terry Schuster wrote in the 21-page report.
Schuster, who was appointed to a five-year term as Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson in 2023, oversees the independent agency responsible for monitoring conditions inside New Jersey’s prisons.
In a Wednesday interview, Schuster told The Jersey Vindicator that many of the issues — including the uneven visitation process — stem from the prison system’s shortage of guards.
Fixing that, he said, will be paramount to future success.
“Staffing is the issue for the governor coming in, for the commissioner today, and anyone who’s commissioner in the future,” Schuster said. “It has got to be the top priority because it affects prison operations so profoundly.”
Often, the facilities will simply lock down if there aren’t enough staff to keep them going, Schuster wrote in his report.
That shouldn’t be normalized, he said. In fact, it should be treated as an emergency that must be quickly remedied.
“When there aren’t enough staff and the facility goes into some kind of lockdown, it can quickly escalate into a humanitarian crisis where people aren’t getting out for showers, they’re not getting out for movement, they’re not coming out to work, they’re not going to programs. They’re just locked down,” Schuster said.
“And if those lockdowns are frequent or extended, it becomes a situation where people are extremely desperate and angry,” he continued. “At its worst, we’ve seen people attempting suicide, or having chest pains and not being able to get the attention of staff or nurses, or lighting fires or flooding their cells just to have anyone pay attention to their needs.”
“We want to avoid that level of chaos,” Schuster said.
He also said his office is monitoring the nightmarish visitation process through weekend spot checks.
“[Families] complained of having to call multiple times to make a visit appointment; being held in the rain without umbrellas while waiting for visits to start; invasive search procedures for people visiting loved ones; getting yelled at by officers during visits or while waiting for visits to start; arbitrariness in how the dress code is enforced; and visit times starting late or otherwise being cut short,” Schuster wrote in his report. “They also expressed a hesitancy to complain for fear of retaliation.”
The agency’s field staffers, who were only made aware of the issues after the town halls, have adjusted their work schedules to better monitor the situation, especially during weekend visitation hours.
“I think it probably still needs more attention,” Schuster said. “Going a couple of times on a Saturday to observe visitation isn’t the equivalent of, ‘We’ve solved it!’ This is something the department wants to fix … but it’s going to take some time.”
In his report, Schuster also offered a range of recommendations to alleviate the worst of the prisoners’ other concerns.
Among these are potentially limiting double-bunked inmates in favor of single-person cells, detailing prisoners’ patient rights in writing, cutting the number of people in the prisons’ disciplinary housing units, avoiding lockdowns whenever possible, and installing air conditioning in every complex.
Schuster also reiterated complaints laid out in earlier reports about dire conditions inside the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Burlington County and New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, and he beseeched state officials to address them.
At the same time, Schuster complimented corrections officials for “taking action to improve operations and services” by changing strip searches at the women’s prison so they’re less degrading, recording cell searches to boost accountability, cutting the amount of contraband that filters in, and issuing tablets that let inmates call their loved ones.
He also said the department is trying to recruit and retain more guards, which has helped rectify staffing worries.
“The office would like to recognize the leadership of New Jersey Department of Corrections Commissioner Victoria Kuhn, and applaud her efforts to rebuild trust in corrections and improve the well-being of staff and incarcerated people,” Schuster wrote. “Repairing the reputation of the department requires both good leadership and meaningful oversight, and the office is grateful to the commissioner for her transparency, proactive problem-solving, and collaborative approach.”
“At its worst, we’ve seen people attempting suicide, or having chest pains and not being able to get the attention of staff or nurses, or lighting fires or flooding their cells just to have anyone pay attention to their needs.”
Terry Schuster
Schuster also wrote that the state is still enforcing the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) despite the Trump administration’s decision to cut funding for the National PREA Resource Center. The PREA is a 2003 federal law that established a zero-tolerance policy for sexual assault and rape in all U.S. correctional facilities, including prisons, jails, and juvenile detention centers. All facilities must develop standards to prevent, detect, and punish sexual abuse and harassment, and collect data on sexual misconduct. Key provisions of the act include training staff, conducting background checks on employees, separating juveniles from adults, and providing health care to victims.
He added that Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba gutted her office’s civil rights division, which included the attorneys who brought federal litigation against the state over the sexual abuse that took place at the state’s prison for women, Edna Mahan Correctional Facility.
“These changes decimated the national infrastructure for preventing and addressing sexual abuse and harassment in prisons, and removed a large pool of resources and subject-matter experts for prison systems in New Jersey and elsewhere,” Schuster wrote. “Admirably, the New Jersey Department of Corrections continues to enforce the law.”
As of 2024, the Department of Corrections operated nine facilities that housed about 13,600 prisoners, according to a state comptroller report.
The ombudsperson’s annual report, Schuster said, is a way to illuminate the prisoners’ issues. This year’s report also provides a critical overview of the prison system’s issues before Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill takes over in January.
“There are really bright spots and there are some big concerns, and they’re all part of the same system,” he said. “There’s a lot in there that is worth looking closely at, grappling with, and prioritizing.”
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Steve Janoski is a multi-award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Post, USA Today, the Associated Press, The Bergen Record and the Asbury Park Press. His reporting has exposed corruption, government malfeasance and police misconduct