Prison in Burlington County plagued with overcrowded cells, filth, and vermin, state report shows

With accounts of overcrowded cells, filth-choked showers, and a kitchen sink that drained directly onto the floor, a new state watchdog report about conditions at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Burlington County described an institution with problems.

Garden State houses 1,000 young men ages 18 to 30, half of them between the ages of 22 and 25. The report, released last week by the New Jersey Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson, detailed “concerning” conditions at the nearly 60-year-old Crosswicks facility that surprised state officials, who identified numerous issues over the course of eight inspections between last July and March 31..

Some of the problems at Garden State were unique to the facility, one of nine overseen by the office of the ombudsperson, an independent state agency. Terry Schuster, the corrections ombudsperson who wrote the report, said in an interview that the “plumbing in the facility’s kitchen was worse than other facilities. It was gross, dirty, and dangerous.”

The main sink wasn’t connected to waste pipes and emptied when a plug on the bottom was removed. There was a drain in the floor, he said, but it was clogged with scraps of food.

“So, dirty water was pooling on the floor in food-prep areas,” Schuster explained.

Maintenance issues extended to the cells housing the facility’s residents.

While the prison is not technically overcrowded, many of the men live doubled-up because too many of the cells in the crumbling structure are uninhabitable, Schuster said.

The cells measure 67 square feet. The bunk bed, desk, and toilet take up much of that, Schuster said.

That leaves 18 square feet of unencumbered space per person. “You could barely do a push-up there,” Ron Pierce, the deputy ombudsperson, said in an interview.

Though the state has no regulations governing how much space people have in correctional cells, New Jersey counties require 50 unencumbered feet per doubled-up cell, with each incarcerated person getting 25 square feet.

“It’s unsettling, because men don’t stay as long in county jails as they do in state prison,” said incarceration expert Nathan Link, a sociology professor at Rutgers University-Camden.

More state funding is needed to increase space, Link said. “But,” he added, for a lot of New Jersey constituents, how much room incarcerated people get is not high on their list of things they ask state legislators to work on.”

Garden State is also unique among correctional facilities in that it was designed to serve a younger population with distinct needs. Young men between the ages of 18 and 30 are at similar developmental levels , and it’s more efficient to target them for resources if they are housed under one roof, experts say.

At that age, people can be more receptive to services that can help them when they’re released from prisons, such as GED programs, Link said.

One especially troubling issue discovered at the facility was the idleness that marks many of the men’s days, according to the report. Not enough in-prison jobs or education programs are available.

“That’s high on the list of things that aren’t ideal there,” Link said. “Nearly half the population is doing nothing every day, and when they reenter society, they’ll have no skills.”

And, Link added, unoccupied, incarcerated men find “their own ways of killing time — getting violent with one another."

A large portion of the men at Garden State were sentenced for violent offenses or crimes involving weapons.

Neither prison officials nor representatives from the New Jersey Department of Corrections responded to requests for comment.

Schuster’s report identified various other problems at the facility, which has a population that is 85% Black or Latino.

“Overall, conditions at Garden State are abysmal,” said Surraya Johnson, director of the Criminal Justice Reform Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for racial justice.

“No one should have to live like that.”

Asked how conditions could be improved, Johnson said that the prison should be closed and that “any money the legislature might consider spending on it should instead be invested in the communities where these young men come from to help kids succeed.”

Because Schuster’s visits to the prison took place over an eight-month period, he found that some of the problems he had pointed out in the beginning were being worked on or had been fixed.

“Prison officials deserve a lot of credit for being responsive,” he said.

After he pointed out the dearth of pillows for prisoners, Schuster said the facility responded by buying 1,200 of them.

While it was a good move, Link said, “that was low-hanging fruit.”

He added, “It was shocking to hear they didn’t have enough pillows in the first place. That’s a very basic thing. You glance into the cells and see what the men need.”

 That an outsider had to tell prison officials that people need pillows is “a little unsettling,” Link said.

Since the inspections, prisoners also started getting drinks with their meals, Schuster said.

Again, Link said, that’s an improvement, “but I’d never heard of institutions not offering drinks, especially with the water fountains not working [as is the case at Garden State], which is dangerous.”

Following the needs laid out in the report, Schuster said, the prison has additionally addressed the following issues:

The kitchen has been cleaned, and there are temporary patches on the floor, according to the report.

The ombudsperson office also recommends that the Department of Corrections develop a strategic plan to assess and limit double-bunking in small cells.

Funding for repair of some infrastructure is expected to be awarded to the facility soon, Schuster said.

But, he acknowledged, there’s never enough.

“Each year, the Department of Corrections gets 3% of what they ask for,” Schuster said.