A New Jersey indicted 14 correctional officers on charges that they brutally attacked several inmates during a raid in New Jersey’s only women’s prison, in 2021.
According to Matt Platkin, New Jersey’s Acting Attorney General, the grand jury’s decision about the events at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in January 2021, came after an investigation that took more than a year.
The guards were charged with conspiracy, tampering with public records, aggravated assault, and official misconduct. Attorneys for the defendants said they would fight the accusations in court.
In June 2021, New Jersey Governor, Phil Murphy, said he would shut down the women’s prison when he read about the January attack on the inmates. The incident resulted in the resignation of the prison’s commissioner.
Video footage from surveillance cameras, released a few months after the attacks, revealed the horrifying events. The footage, recorded between January 11 and 12, along with the testimony from law enforcement personnel and the investigative report by the governor, painted a shocking picture of the horrible mistreatment of women by the guards inside the prison.
In one of the video clips, five correctional officers dressed in full armor, including helmets, chest, back, and shoulder armor, went into one inmate’s cell and started punching and beating her in the head. In the video, you can hear the woman pleading with the guards to stop punching her in the face.
The investigative report, which was ordered by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, was released in June 2021. The report contained several interviews with guards, the corrections officials, videos, documents, and emails, as well as an interview with Marcus Hicks, the former Department of Corrections Commissioner. It said that guards used not only excessive force on the prisoners but also reported false information about the raid. In addition, the prison staff failed to protect the women from being viewed by male guards during strip searches.
The governor’s report also revealed what was going on in the days leading up to the brutal attack, and stated that some inmates coordinated to “splash” the guards a few days before the attack. Splash is prison slang for throwing liquids like urine and feces at the guards. The corrections officers’ labor union leader said the guards were very upset.
The attack led to the declaration by Governor Murphy that he would shut the prison down, but he did not reveal when he would do so.
In August 2021, the United States Department of Justice coordinated with the State of New Jersey in an agreement, addressing a major violation – the state did not protect the female inmates from sexual abuse. The state prison cooperated by installing an independent monitor and set up a way for the women to confidentially report sexual abuse cases that would also protect them from retaliation after their admissions.