Staffing Woes Affect Mental Health Care At Essex County Prison: Report – Newark, NJ Patch
ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — Members of a watchdog task force have released a detailed report about medical care at the Essex County Correctional Facility (ECCF) and the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark.
The Essex County Civilian Task Force’s Medical Subcommittee report takes a look at overall “health and safety” in the prison, as well as the wellbeing of inmates, jail staff and correctional police officers.
According to the task force, inmates released from custody are facing significant barriers as they try to re-enter society, and are often struggling to get health care, social services, employment, housing and other critical support.
It’s an issue that affects thousands of people and their families in the area. According to statistics from the New Jersey Department of Corrections, the network of jails, prisons and youth complexes in Essex County has the most people in custody out of any county in the state.
The report offers some background on the situation at the ECCF, the largest county jail in New Jersey, and Delaney Hall, a privately run facility owned by the GEO Group:
“As of November 2021, the Essex County Correctional Facility has a jail population of 2,707. A total of 2,590 of these individuals are men, and 117 are women, including people incarcerated at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility. The Delaney Hall Detention Facility is a medium-security prison privately owned by the GEO Group and contracted to house Essex County inmates … Many of these individuals require complex medical and social services because of conditions such as substance use disorders, psychiatric illnesses, chronic health conditions and pregnancy.”
The prison has 602 correctional police officers and 180 civilian staff, including medical professionals (physicians, dentists, nurses) and clinical professionals (social workers), combined across the ECCF and its three-alternative-program facilities.
As of August 2021, the ECCF no longer contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold detainees awaiting deportation, a move that was done ahead of the state’s new law banning future contracts with the federal agency. Read More: NJ Bans Prisons From Making Deals To Hold Immigrants For ICE
However, some advocates have criticized the county for replacing these detainees with inmates from Union County and the U.S. Marshals Service. As of November 2021, about 937 U.S. Marshals inmates and 355 Union County inmates were being held at the ECCF. Read More: Essex County Nixes ICE Jail Contract, But Some Feel ‘Gaslighted’
The Essex County Correctional Facility – which is accredited by the American Correctional Association – has seen vocal criticism in recent years from advocates, family members of inmates and staff members, who allege that a variety of health and safety risks have taken place at the jail.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
The latest report alleges that two big issues are affecting the Essex County Correctional Facility:
STAFFING – “Staffing across all sectors of the jail is spread thin. In the case of mental and behavioral health care, it only allows for attention to the most urgent cases. It rarely allows for proactive and ongoing evaluation and treatment of the general jail population for mental health issues past psychotropic interventions. Recidivism is likely to remain for many people in custody because the ability to connect everyone to community programs, jobs, educational opportunities, and medical services continues to be limited unless identified within specialized groups such as those with substance use disorder. The ECCF is understaffed and should be reevaluated on a facility-wide basis as the relative success of the jail relies too heavily upon overworked professionals who exceed their contractual obligations.”
INMATE RELEASES – “At the ECCF, the average time served is nearly one month, and inmates are released at unusual time periods with little prior notice, which exacerbates barriers to access and transitions in care. This unpredictability around release has created challenges for the medical staff in treating inmates’ health issues and connecting people to care on the outside prior to release. Especially for individuals with highly complex medical and psychiatric conditions, the irregularity around discharge from the facility intensifies their medical and social risks. Efforts should be focused on removing barriers to care delivery behind the wall and connecting people to a robust network of primary and specialty care in the community. The ECCF, by default, becomes tasked as the primary health care provider for all people in custody, but are asked to do so under increasingly shorter and uncertain time frames.”
Some recommendations from the report include:
- Hire more health care staff and increase training for correctional police officers
- Address chronic care conditions and mental health disorders
- Construct additional housing units and identify therapy spaces
- Help incarcerated people prepare for release (should be a process that begins in pre-booking, particularly due to high rates of mental health challenges and chronic diseases)
The Essex County Civilian Task Force’s Medical Subcommittee will discuss the report at a virtual meeting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 23. The public is invited to attend the livestream event via www.facebook.com/EssexCountyCivilianTaskForce or via Zoom link (Meeting ID: 829 6600 7075, Passcode: 654868, mobile: +1 646 931 3860 US). Questions can be submitted by email to JailTaskForce@admin.essexcountynj.org in advance, and may be addressed during the public meeting.
“Understanding that persons housed at ECCF are being processed through the criminal justice system, it is important to recognize that this facility primarily houses individuals who have become increasingly relegated to the margins of American society due to systemic forces and unequal distribution of resources and power rooted in structural and social inequities of racism and discrimination,” the report adds.
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