NJ senators want prisons chief gone amid abuse scandal
There are growing calls for Gov. Phil Murphy to fire the Department of Corrections commissioner amid a probe of accusations of abuse by corrections staff against inmates at the state s women’s prison.
All 25 Senate Democrats have called for Marcus Hicks to immediately resign as DOC commissioner following the suspension of 30 employees at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women along with a new internal investigation stemming from a Jan. 11 incident. Republicans also have called for his removal.
“He has demonstrated time and again that he is not up to the task of running the Department of Corrections, a department that holds the responsibility for the custody and care of approximately 20,000 state-sentenced offenders housed across 12 state correctional facilities, county jails and community halfway houses,” the lawmakers said in a Jan. 28 letter to the governor.
The New Jersey Reentry Corporation launched a new initiative to better facilitate training, employment, and health care for formerly incarcerated women.
Though he peppered Jersey City landlords with a flurry of applications, future restaurant owner Candido Ortiz couldn’t find a place to live in the same city where he worked. Once landlords ran a background check, he would routinely be denied, or not hear back.
Ortiz had served 28 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute narcotics and possession of a firearm. In 2016, President Barack Obama commuted his close-to-50-year sentence, also granting clemency to hundreds of other federal inmates convicted of nonviolent drug crimes under previous harsh sentencing rules.
That didn t matter to landlords once they ran a background check on Ortiz. “At that point, they find out where you came from, so you don’t have to be too smart to know why they don’t give the place to you,” said Ortiz, 60.
8:10 pm UTC Jan. 14, 2021
BRIDGETON Deborah Johnson turns away from New Jersey s largest prison, a behemoth of concrete and barbed wire, and waits.
She grasps the door handle of her bright blue sedan to steady herself and watches two white vans roll into the gravel parking lot.
Her oldest son, Ahmed Ismail, 30, lumbers down from one.
“Heyyy, welcome home! Welcome home!” Deborah shouts, her mask unable to muffle her rapture and relief at the sight of her son. She claps gloved hands in the frigid December morning air.
Ahmed’s arms wrap around his mother’s waist; hers stretch up he s 8 inches taller than her 5-foot-3 frame to circle his broad shoulders.
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