Essex County Correctional Facility, Failed Negotiations
After successfully establishing detainee visitor programs in both the Hudson County and Bergen County Jails in 2009 and 2010 we had hoped to provide a program in the Essex County Correctional Facility (ECCF). In early 2011, with an introduction by the Newark office of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), we approached the jail’s management. At that time the ECCF had 500 detention beds in the jail and planned the addition of 300 beds.
Initially, ECCF management was not responsive. Controversy surrounding the plan to run the conversion of a portion of Delaney Hall to ICE detention through interconnected contracts between ICE, Essex County and Community Education Center diverted the Jail’s management. During the summer of 2011, we had meetings with the director, who appeared to be in favor of a phased in visitor program. However, while Delaney Hall negotiations were continuing he asked to defer decision.
During the fall of 2011, the ICE, Essex County and CEC completed contracts for 420 beds at Delaney Hall. Unexpectedly, the Elizabeth detention Center was not closed. This altered our original expectation that volunteers serving the EDC could be directed to new programs at both Delaney Hall and ECCF. Negotiations with the director were begun again and continued till mid-summer 2012 when ECCF proposed onerous security clearances for each First Friends visitor.
Since our visitors adhere to public access rules and no security clearances are required at the 4 facilities we do visit, we rejected the requirements and instead proposed that only copies of driver’s licenses be provided for certification. In October, the director said he would require each prospective visitor be interviewed by his staff before acceptance.
Given the length and difficulty of the negotiations and the fact that we would not subject volunteers to what could turn into an interrogation, we terminated consideration.
The experience with ECCF highlights the problem associated with the preferred use of criminal law enforcement facilities for civil detention. Each jail’s call for criminal control is in conflict with attempts by the Department of Homeland Security, the courts and the public, for more benign treatment of civil detainees.
Our position continues to be that nonviolent detainees should not be held in any criminal jail. Expediency or lower cost cannot justify such harsh and inhumane treatment for civil detainees. New Jersey county jails should not hold immigrant detainees.
