Essex County Plans To Use ICE Profits To Give Inmates Lawyers

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — Essex County won’t be nixing its controversial contract to house ICE detainees at its embattled prison any time soon. But there is a plan in the works that will help safeguard the rights of inmates, officials announced Thursday... free legal aid.

During a subcommittee meeting of the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders on March 14, President Brendan Gill updated the public about officials’ plans to take a closer look at conditions at the county-run prison.

Recently, the jail – which rakes in millions of dollars for housing inmates with criminal convictions and federal ICE detainees – has come under fire for several alleged health and safety violations, as well as suicide risks to mentally ill inmates.

• See related article: Mentally Ill Inmate Hung Himself While In Straitjacket, Family Says
• See related article: Jail Served Us Meatballs That Smelled Like Feces, Essex County Inmate Says

Local activists have been holding protests and rallies decrying the county’s contract with ICE for years.

• See related article: Anti-ICE Christmas Carolers Crash Freeholder Meeting (VIDEO)
• See related article: More Oversight, No ICE At Essex County Prison, Activists Demand

After a scathing inspection report of the prison from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) was released last month, the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders’ public safety subcommittee called a meeting to discuss conditions at the facility.

The inspection came as a surprise to the freeholders, Gill said.

“For the record, neither I nor the board, were aware of the inspection or any of the findings until I read the published report from the OIG,” Gill said. “As a matter of fact, Freeholder Robert Mercado and my colleagues toured the facility on July 19, 2018, without issue or any indication of the report’s findings.”

Gill added that if the allegations are true, they're unacceptable.

“Corrective measures must be taken,” he stressed.

However, those measures won’t include nixing the county’s agreement to house federal detainees at Essex County Correctional Facility. Why? According to Gill, canceling the county’s contract with ICE may actually end up harming inmates at the jail more than it helps them.

“Although there are strong opinions on whether we should keep this contract or not, it is my personal opinion that an immediate break of the contract will not result in detainees being released,” Gill said.

It will, however, result in greater distance between the detainees, their families and their lawyers, Gill stated.

“This is a reality that cannot be ignored,” Gill said. “So while I am committed to making sure that the county administration enacts new measures of oversight and assistance, we will consider all options.”

Ironically, one such option may involve using some of the profits from the ICE contract to provide legal service to the very same detainees.

According to Gill, freeholders have requested that the 2019 Essex County budget allocate a portion of the monies received from the ICE contract to create a “legal services fund” to provide representation to ICE detainees at the Essex County Correctional Facility.

In addition, the freeholder board and county administrators plan to make sure the conditions outlined in the OIG report are “rectified, maintained, and frequently monitored,” Gill said.

“As stewards of county government, we can help by upholding the standard of how our facilities are run,” he said Thursday.

On Friday, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. announced that the 2019 Essex County budget will include $750,000 to create the proposed legal services fund.

“We have always been committed to providing the best possible conditions for people being detained at our correctional facility,” DiVincenzo said. “This will ensure detainees have the legal representation they are entitled to.”

DiVincenzo recently introduced a county budget that would take in $42.7 million by housing federal inmates, immigration detainees and inmates at the prison.

• See related article: Essex County's Prison Profits Will Continue Under Proposed Budget

Freeholder Vice President Wayne Richardson said Thursday’s subcommittee hearing “provided the proper forum for a necessary conversation that needed to be had.”

“This was somewhat overdue, but it's never too late to do the right thing,” Richardson said.

The specifics of how the new fund will operate are “still being worked out,” county officials said Friday. (Story continues below)

SUICIDES AND MEATBALLS

According to a statement from county officials, the Essex County Correctional Facility (ECCF) – which opened in 2004 – has been accredited by the American Correctional Association, which has set standards for correctional facilities and detention centers in the United States, American territories and some foreign countries, since 2013. The prison has received 100 percent compliance with the New Jersey State Department of Corrections every year since 2006, and has been accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities since 2007.

However, the jail has recently come under fire for a stomach-churning variety of alleged safety violations.

Earlier this week, the brother of an East Newark man who hung himself in August 2018 while imprisoned at the ECCF filed a lawsuit against the county, the former warden, Charles Green, and the corporate healthcare provider at the jail, CFG Health Systems.

During the OIG inspection in 2018, DHS officials allegedly found open packages of raw chicken leaking blood, "slimy and discolored" lunch meat and "unrecognizable" hamburger patties.

"For dinner, we were served meatballs that smelled like fecal matter," one inmate claimed.

The Essex County jail was one of three in New Jersey that received scathing condemnation for "inhumane" conditions in a February 2018 report from Human Rights First.

Detainees at the Essex facility said that they often run out of water in the units and that the water from the bathroom tap is undrinkable. "Outdoor recreation" at the jail is an indoor room with a barred-over skylight that allows some fresh air into the otherwise dark and enclosed space, the report stated.

• See related article: Maggots, Squalor For ICE Detainees At 3 'Inhumane' NJ Jails
• See related article: ICE Immigrant Detainee Dies In Essex County; Prisoner Death Toll Increases

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