New Jersey may need more than $1B to replace crumbling maximum security prison facility in Trenton

A 2025 watchdog report renewed calls to demolish and rebuild the aging prison complex

The head of the state Department of Corrections says that replacing the ancient, decrepit wings of New Jersey State Prison could cost more than $1 billion.

For more than a century, state officials have said that the unit, known colloquially as the West Compound, is not fit for human habitation because of its shockingly small cells, exposed toilets, and stifling summer heat, among other things.

But demolishing and rebuilding the Trenton facility, which is thought to be America’s oldest operating prison, comes with its own set of problems, according to DOC commissioner Victoria Kuhn.

“That area houses some of our most difficult, most challenging, and most dangerous individuals,” Kuhn told state lawmakers during an Assembly budget hearing on Monday, May 11. “It is a very unique population. It would be very challenging to close that piece and house [the prisoners] somewhere else without constructing a new facility.”

Assemblyman Brian Rumpf, an Ocean County Republican, asked Kuhn if East Jersey State Prison in Woodbridge might be able to house some of the prisoners. 

But Kuhn said that facility, formerly known as Rahway State Prison, is mostly a medium-security complex, and the maximum-security inmates that do end up there are typically older, more well-behaved inmates.

“The individuals are not causing issues,” she said. “If you speak to anybody who works [at New Jersey State Prison], they will advise you of the population they’re working with.”

“Trenton is the worst of the worst?” Rumpf asked.

“It is very challenging,” Kuhn said.

The hefty price tag for a new maximum-security wing is likely to give lawmakers pause, even though department of corrections leaders, policymakers, and advisers have said since 1918 that the West Compound desperately needs to be knocked down.

The state is already replacing one facility, the scandal-scarred Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, with a brand new, $312 million complex. Kuhn said construction will likely begin next year and finish up in the spring of 2029. 

But New Jersey State Prison faces a different set of issues that would boost the rebuild cost considerably.

Last September, inspectors from the Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson issued a 12-page report detailing the unit’s squalid conditions and recommending it be shuttered and leveled in favor of a modern housing unit.

That would be a big step up for the West Compound, parts of which were built in 1836. Other sections were added between 1861 and 1905, which makes even the newest part of the wing more than 120 years old.

When inspectors began their probe in October 2024, they found more than 600 people living in cells so narrow that a man can stretch his arms and touch both walls.

More than two-thirds of the more than 1,100 men incarcerated at New Jersey State Prison have life sentences or will not be eligible for release until at least age 70. That means hundreds will spend their lives in tiny cells that sometimes measure just 28 square feet.

Other issues abound, including toilets built into cell walls that offer no privacy, faucets that do not provide hot water, open showers that rob inmates of modesty, no day rooms or recreation spaces, and housing units that reach dangerously high temperatures in summer.

“The buildings in the West Compound were constructed nearly 200 years ago and have been called antiquated and inhumane by New Jersey correctional leaders, policymakers, and subject matter experts for at least the last 100 years,” the inspectors wrote. “Lawmakers and the Department of Corrections should prioritize and fund the demolition and replacement of the West Compound with modern correctional housing units that better meet the needs of the department and the incarcerated population.”

According to the report, the lengthy list of structural issues has cost Garden State taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in maintenance and repair fees over the years.

Rumpf raised concerns about the maintenance costs during the Monday hearing, and asked if the state was spending a “considerable amount of money” just keeping the facility up to code.

“I’m going to guess it’s significantly less than a billion dollars,” Kuhn replied. “I don’t want to be a naysayer … If there was an appetite for building a new max-security facility — and I don’t know if there is an appetite — but if there was, we’re your folks to get it done. We’re not going to be the ones standing in the way, but we’re trying to be realists in that we understand the cost that comes with it.”

Assemblyman William Spearman (D-Gloucester) also asked if the Department of Corrections actually needs all the beds the West Compound provides.

“We need every bed we have in our system,” Kuhn replied. “It’s a very delicate balance, and it would be very challenging to not need those beds without reducing population.”

Spearman also asked Kuhn whether lawmakers should be looking for a billion dollars for an up-to-date facility. 

“We’re never going to be the ones that stand in the way of constructing a new facility,” Kuhn said. “Who wouldn’t want a state-of-the-art facility? But I also wanted to be very mindful of the billion-dollar price tag that comes with that.”