Judge ends oversight of NJ women’s prison with history of sexual abuse

Federal oversight of New Jersey’s long-troubled women’s prison has ended, six years after federal investigators found that state officials failed to keep its residents safe from sexual abuse by staff.

U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer announced Thursday that the state and the Justice Department jointly moved to terminate a 2021 consent decree that mandated widespread reforms to protect women incarcerated at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton.

State Department of Corrections officials have fully complied with the agreement, Frazer said. Judge Zahid N. Quraishi terminated the decree in a terse order Wednesday, noting that a federal monitor agreed to the termination too.

“Edna Mahan’s reforms have been consistent and transformational in addressing sexual abuse,” Frazer said in a statement.

Fourteen correctional officers were arrested in 2021 for brutally assaulting incarcerated women during a violent night of forced cell extractions. The prison also had long been plagued by accusations of sexual abuse.

Since the arrests, state Department of Corrections officials now require officers to wear body cameras and have implemented trauma- and gender-informed training and expanded vocational and educational programs, social services, and addiction treatment.

State legislators also codified protections for female prisons in legislation former Gov. Phil Murphy signed in January. The new law requires “gender-responsive” policies from entry through release, among other things.

Murphy ordered Edna Mahan’s closure shortly after the violence. Construction of a new women’s prison is underway in Chesterfield. Nearly 400 women remain incarcerated at the old facility awaiting its completion, according to Department of Corrections data.

A state judge dismissed the accused officers’ criminal indictments last year, citing prosecutorial delays and other deficiencies.