The alleged abuse that left one woman inmate with a concussion and another in a wheelchair earlier this year happened inside New Jersey s only prison for women on a unit named Restorative Housing.
Advocates for inmates say that unit at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Union Township is not restorative, and, in practice, is the very sort of isolated confinement that was supposed to have been limited under a state law that went into effect Aug. 1.
Now those advocates and inmates are raising questions about compliance amid renewed scrutiny of how well New Jersey oversees its prisons.
“It certainly appears as if every change has been cosmetic, said Bonnie Kerness, director of the prison watch program of the American Friends Service Committee.