Court: Stop Putting Women in Men's Prisons

This decision was a long time coming: Today the New Jersey Superior Court ordered the state's Department of Corrections (DOC) to stop transferring women prisoners to the New Jersey State Prison (NJSP), a men’s supermax prison.

In March 2007, the DOC transferred approximately 40 women prisoners from the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, New Jersey's sole women's prison, to the NJSP. As a result of this move, the women are deprived of the programming and services they received at Edna Mahan, and are subject to more repressive conditions than other prisoners incarcerated for similar crimes at either prison.

In December 2007, the ACLU Women's Rights Project and the ACLU of New Jersey filed a lawsuit, Jones v. Hayman, charging that the oppressive conditions the women face at NJSP are unconstitutional and discriminatory based on sex.

While we're thrilled with today's decision, it didn't come without some controversy. In March, we learned that James Drumm, Assistant Administrator of the NJSP, offered women prisoners sentence reductions in exchange for making false statements describing the conditions at NJSP as better than they were. After one prisoner told us about the offer, she was beaten by a prison guard. Women prisoners described a campaign of intimidation to punish and silence women who told us about what was going on.

The court's decision will prevent the DOC from moving any more women into the men's prison while our lawsuit proceeds. The court also granted our clients' request to pursue their claims as a class action suit, and denied a motion by the DOC to dismiss the case.