by
Todd DeFeo, The Center Square contributor
| April 12, 2021 02:00 PM
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Some New Jersey lawmakers want more information on roughly $21 million in settlements the state reached with current and former inmates at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women.
The lawmakers, in part, want to know whether the settlements involving 20 lawsuits include nondisclosure agreements barring the women from speaking about their time at Edna Mahan.
The taxpayer-funded settlement comes as a bipartisan group wants the removal of New Jersey Department of Corrections Commissioner Marcus Hicks over allegations of abuse and mistreatment of inmates at the Union Township facility.
“The Administration’s need to pay $21 million to settle civil lawsuits stemming from sexual assaults, beatings, brutality and misconduct by corrections officers at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women from 2014 to the present is just further evidence of an institution in crisis where a culture of abuse has been allowed to fester for years,” Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, said in a news release.