An embattled jail in Essex County is under fire again after a surprise inspection from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

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ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — “For dinner, we were served meatballs that smelled like fecal matter.” This testimony from an inmate is one of several stomach-churning accusations that resulted from an unannounced inspection at the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark, federal officials say.

Less than a year after a nonprofit watchdog group named it as one of three “inhumane” jails in New Jersey, the Essex County Correctional Facility – which houses a mix of people with criminal convictions and federal ICE detainees – has attracted more condemnation… this time from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Last week, officials with the DHS Office of the Inspector General announced that several serious health and safety risks to inmates turned up at the county-run jail during an surprise visit in 2018. (Read their full report here)

DHS officials provided the following background about the inspection:

“In July 2018, we visited the Essex County Correctional Facility as part of our latest round of unannounced spot inspections. At the time, approximately 216 Essex County Department of Corrections’ guards oversaw 797 male detainees. At the facility, detainees with prior criminal history are held in one of seven housing units with up to 64 cells holding two detainees per cell. Detainees with no criminal history are held in one of seven open bay dormitories, each holding up to 60 detainees. Finally, the Special Management Unit contained eight cells, in a corridor physically separated from inmates, for segregated detainees who had violated facility rules or requested to be separated from other detainees for their safety.”

DHS officials were particularly critical about the way the jail feeds its inmates. Inspectors allegedly discovered:

  • Open packages of raw chicken leaking blood all over refrigeration units
  • Undated, moldy bread held for “indefinite periods”
  • “Slimy and discolored” lunch meat stored without any labels
  • “Foul-smelling and unrecognizable” hamburger patties
At left, “slimy and discolored” lunch meat found during a DHS inspection at Essex County Correctional Facility in July 2018. At right, “foul-smelling and unrecognizable” hamburger patties. (Source: DHS/OIG)

“The food handling, in general, was so substandard that ICE and facility leadership had the kitchen manager replaced during our inspection,” DHS officials wrote. “Overall, our inspection validated media reports of concerns about food, particularly meat, which was raw, spoiled, or expired.”

Detainees told inspectors that eating prison food gave them diarrhea and made them vomit. Many inmates said they started purchasing food at their own expense from the jail’s commissary out of sheer desperation.

From January 2018 to July 2018, detainees filed about 200 kitchen-related grievances.

“For dinner, we were served meatballs that smelled like fecal matter,” one inmate claimed. “The food was rotten.”

Another inmate called the jail’s meals “complete garbage.”

“It’s becoming impossible to eat it,” the inmate told inspectors. “It gets worse every day. It literally looks like it came from the garbage dumpster. I have a stomach infection because of it and the nurse herself told me it was caused by the food.”

Bread and signage found at Essex County Correctional Facility in July 2018 (Source: DHS/OIG)

It wasn’t just food that was posing health risks to the inmates, officials said.

DHS inspectors also allegedly found:

  • Leaking ceilings in detainee living areas
  • Showers laced with mold and peeling paint
  • Mattresses in such poor condition that detainees were using bed sheets to tie the seams together so the filling didn’t come out
  • Mesh cages added to glass enclosures inside housing areas to provide “outdoor” recreation for detainees
DHS inspectors found detainee mattresses being held together with tied sheets, officials said. (Source: OIG)
DHS inspectors allegedly found a hallway leading to a shower filled with mold. The shower stall was covered with mold, mildew and peeling paint, officials said. (Source: OIG)

HERE’S WHAT’S BEING DONE: OFFICIALS

After DHS inspectors recommended an “immediate, full review” of the jail, the following actions were taken, federal officials said in their report.

  • Multiple “contract discrepancy reports” were issued
  • Food storage inventory was properly dated, documented and packaged
  • The facility food services manager was immediately replaced by the food service contractor with a corporate, management-level, food services professional
  • An ICE quality assurance coordinator has been assigned to conduct spot audits of the food service kitchen on a weekly basis to ensure compliance
  • On a scheduled rotation, all ICE detainee housing units were emptied and thoroughly cleaned and disinfected using steam pressure-washers
  • Repairs, reconditioning and painting of walls and ceilings, and hardware were completed throughout the housing units
  • All detainee mattresses that had signs of wear were replaced

“The Essex County Correctional Facility has a proven track record of providing safe and secure conditions for its inmates and officers,” Essex County Correctional Facility Director Al Ortiz told Patch on Tuesday.

According to Ortiz, the prison has earned 100 percent compliance ratings from the State of New Jersey for the past 10 years, passed inspections by a variety of organizations and is the largest county jail in the United States to gain accreditation from the ACA, which demonstrates its commitment to providing the highest level of care.

“We understand the issues raised in the Inspector General’s report and have taken steps to address and rectify the conditions,” Ortiz said. “We are proud of our proactive approach to meet the needs of our detainees and the high standards of care that we have set for our facility.”

Despite the massive remediation effort in the wake of the DHS inspection, activists with prison watchdog nonprofit Freedom for Immigrants said its members are “deeply alarmed” by the dismal situation in Essex County.

According to a Feb. 15 statement from the group:

“Detained individuals have few if any food options in ICE detention. For those who cannot afford to buy the prohibitively expensive food options from the commissary, they are left no choice but to eat the food prepared by the facility. But this jail proved that it cannot even provide adequate nourishment — a basic necessity. If it can’t do that, then it certainly cannot ensure the well-being of individuals in any capacity.”

Local activists have been protesting conditions at the prison for years, as well as the county’s continued profit from housing ICE detainees there.

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.

Last month, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. introduced a proposed county budget that would rake in $42.7 million by housing federal inmates, immigration detainees and inmates at the Essex County Correctional Facility.

Mesh cages were added inside housing areas at the Essex County Correctional Facility to provide “outdoor” recreation for detainees, DHS inspectors said. (Source: OIG)

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Photos: U.S. Department of Homeland Security