A judge on Wednesday ended five years of federal monitoring at New Jersey’s women’s prison where the U.S. Department of Justice had documented years of sexual abuse by staff.
U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi of the District of New Jersey signed the termination of the consent decree between the Justice Department and the state Department of Corrections. A day earlier, Jane Parnell, who monitored the progress of reforms at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women since August 2021, told the judge she supported ending the decree.
“The issues that led to the Consent Decree were serious and systemic, and continued attention is critical,” Parnell wrote in a letter submitted to Quraishi on Tuesday. Corrections officials and prison staff “have put the policies, systems, organizational structure, and practices in place to continue this work without federal court oversight.”
The 110-year-old prison, with about 400 women on two Hunterdon County campuses, is set to be demolished and replaced in 2029.
Victoria Kuhn, the state Corrections commissioner, called the termination “a monumental milestone, but more importantly, it is validation of a deep cultural shift that has occurred over the last five years.”
Two-year investigation
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey began investigating the prison in April 2018. Two years later the Justice Department said the state had failed to protect the women from sexual abuse, and systemic deficiencies discouraged prisoners from reporting the incidents. The investigation followed the assaults of more than 10 women from 2016-2019, though such allegations dated to the 1990s. In August 2021, the state and Justice Department signed the consent decree that included federal monitoring and a plan to address more than 100 issues.
In January 2021, nine months after the DOJ report on sexual abuse, several women were assaulted by corrections officers. Then-Gov. Phil Murphy called for closing the prison. The corrections commissioner and ombudsman, both male, resigned and were replaced.
“We’ve seen the court-appointed monitor’s progress reports and are aligned with her findings that the department has demonstrated sustained compliance with the court’s orders,” said Terry Schuster, the corrections ombudsman. “In many ways, they have gone above and beyond what was required by the federal courts.
Last week, state Corrections Department and the U.S. Department of Justice filed a joint motion with the judge seeking to end the monitoring because of what they said was the substantive compliance with the consent decree.
“It’s almost as if the overarching philosophy of running a facility like this has undergone a 100% change,” said Bonnie Kerness, program director of the American Friends Service Committee’s Prison Watch, which monitors human rights abuses in custodial settings. “The Department of Corrections took this very seriously. The administration at Edna took this very seriously. The officers took this very seriously.”
No end to reforms
The judge had ended some requirements in November 2024 and January, after Parnell reported that the state had put numerous reforms in place. State corrections officials changed staff training, implemented gender-responsive and trauma-informed practices, increased camera coverage, improved investigations, strengthened reporting systems and expanded protection against retaliation.
Parnell told Quraishi that she “appreciated” that corrections officials invited her to do a voluntary final visit before seeking to terminate the decree.
“The visit demonstrated that they did not treat termination as simply a legal or administrative step,” Parnell wrote. “The close-out visit confirmed that the end of federal monitoring will not mean the end of the reforms.”
Murphy in January signed a law that codified many of the reforms, with standards for privacy, safety, gender-responsive care and staff training. The law also requires the establishment of a special victims unit for investigations and a unit to ensure compliance with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.
Allegations of sexual abuse and retaliation by prison staff declined over five years, according to the monitoring reports. One case was substantiated in 2024 and three in 2021.
Kerness, an Edna Mahan board trustee, said she is confident that the reforms will hold.
“One of the things I think we can count on is internal compliance,” she said.
