Passaic County Jail, in Paterson, New Jersey, is a notorious correctional facility. Known for its poor conditions and for being poorly administered, Passaic County Jail (PCJ) is a modern dungeon. A federal judge investigating conditions there called the place “shameful.”
Starting soon after September 11, 2001, PCJ has detained several hundred Muslims suspected of terrorist links. In February 2003, eight Muslim men conducted a hunger strike to protest the appalling conditions of the jail, and the harsh treatment of prisoners. The detainees demanded to be transferred to another jail, thinking that any place would be preferable to where they were. Correctional officers attempted to force-feed the protestors, but failed. Eventually, their strike was successful, and they were moved to Bergen County Jail.
Later that year, three correctional officers were suspended for severely beating an inmate who had insulted the K-9 officer’s dog. This incident was publicized, but most incidents of official brutality are not.
These episodes are indicative of the treatment of inmates, and of an atmosphere permissive of official violence, which is created and maintained by the very highly-paid bureaucrats who manage the jail.
When entering PCJ, inmates are given a handbook of rules and procedures. It indicates that PCJ intends to provide a safe, sanitary, humane environment. It states that religious services, regular recreation, health care, and nutritional meals are provided for inmates. After examining the handbook, a new inmate may feel secure knowing that during the repayment of his debt to society, though he may be unfree, his life will be bearable, if not comfortable. But people who have spent time at PCJ know something about the handbook that new arrivals do not: That hardly anything in it is true.
At PCJ, there are 2 types of inmate quarters, 3-man cells and dormitories. The 3-man cells were designed for only two men. But, as the jail’s website itself admits, the jail is overcrowded. Thus, in a room hardly larger than an average home’s bathroom, 3 men are confined.
The dormitories were intended for 30 men, but now hold 60. In the dorms, men sleep on 20 triple-bunk beds, the third bunk being seven feet from the floor. There is no ladder to reach the third bunk. Only two thin bars across the middle of the first and second bunks provide the means for climbing. For a person to slip and fall when trying to get down from the third bunk is not uncommon. The beds are about an arm length apart, close enough so that if two inmates are facing one another, they can feel each other’s breath. This is one reason that, when one person becomes sick, the illness spreads to everyone else rapidly.
For humans to be among 59 others in very close quarters is not only unhealthy, but nearly unbearable. The constant din of 60 voices, all competing with one another, the televisions, the yelling correctional officers (COs), can drive people mad. The noise never stops: With 60 men, at least 25 will always be awake, will always be talking, will always be producing punctuating sound. Because of the noise, sleep is halting at best. Much of the violence that occurs in the jail surely results from the lack of undisturbed sleep which is prevented by the constant noise. The continual blare of people’s random chatter, and the sleep thereby prevented, leads to a room full of consistently tired, irritable men, ready to snap.
Typically, the dorms are freezing during the winter, and sweltering during the summer. The temperature of the ground level dorms is influenced more by the outside temperature than by inside climate control, if any exists. During the winter, the dorms are frigid. The inmates are forced to shield themselves under the one blanket they are permitted. Despite the temperature, the vents continue to pump cold air. To block the freezing air, inmates use plastic trash bags, and tape, from wherever they can find it, to cover the vents. Such a solution lasts only until the COs tear down the bags. Despite that the vents supply the only source of fresh air to the dorm, it is necessary that they be re-covered, otherwise the temperature becomes intolerably cold, especially for those whose beds are immediately below the vents. Further, because of condensation, the vents constantly drip cold water. The COs consider the covering of the vents with plastic bags more of a problem then the temperature of the room that necessitates the covering, or the water leaking from them.
In one dorm, there was one corner in which no one could sleep on the top bunks of 2 beds, because the ceiling was persistently wet and dripping. After any large snowfall that begins to melt, the dripping becomes a torrent of water pouring from the ceiling, creating a puddle of yellow, rust-colored water on the floor. In one case, 2 inmates from an entire bunk were forced to move their mats to the floor to escape the wetness. The water in the ceiling began obviously spreading, and soon was dripping over a four bunk area, while pouring water over half that area. At the time, one captain, one lieutenant, and countless sergeants were alerted to the problem on numerous occasions, but nothing was ever done to stop the water, or even to absorb the puddles. The pouring water continued for about a week, and the water on the ceiling lasted, in total, about three months. It only disappeared when the weather consistently exceeded 50 degrees. There is no doubt, though, that the problem resumes every winter. There is equally no doubt that nothing will be done to solve it.
Inmates control the showers with one button, which activates the water for about 30 seconds. There is no temperature control, and the water is always either scalding or icy cold. Only rarely, and unpredictably, is it comfortably warm. Although COs were alerted to the problem of extreme temperatures, and they took note of it, no fix was ever attempted. Of course, that COs never act on problems, even when they ask if there are any. In the section of PCJ called Max 2, a sergeant asked inmates if there was any trouble to report about their cells. One exasperated inmate asked the officer what the point was of saying anything, since the officer would merely write down the complaint and then forget about it. The futility of even acknowledging a problem is learned by every inmate.
The designers of the jail apparently considered doors on the toilet partitions too luxuriant. Inmates attempt to provide more privacy by covering the partition walls, which have holes, with sheets or shower curtains. A torn sheet creates a clothesline across which a sheet or shower curtain forms a crude door. PCJ administrators decry the destruction of county property, such as ripped sheets. However, if the jail itself provided even a modicum of privacy for a person using the toilet among 59 other people, such destruction would be avoided.
The toilets appear to be the breeding ground for the other inhabitants of the dorms, small flies. Hundreds cohabitate with the inmates. They fly around heads, land on food, and buzz in the ear when one is trying to sleep. But they congregate around the toilets. No amount of cleaning can eliminate them. Their effects on health can only be imagined, but the jail administrators surely do not even do that.
The potential for sickness is exacerbated by the lack of fresh air. The supposed source of clean air are several air vents on the ceiling. However, if air does spring from them during the winter, the air is freezing and water is also leaking from them. During warmer months, the air from them is hot. Therefore, people are forced to choose between fresh air that dramatically adds to the discomfort in the room, or no air at all. They frequently choose the latter, if only because inmates sleeping under the vents object to either being wet and cold, or being suffocated by hot air in the summer months. Without the vents, the only source of different air is whatever seeps through the bars, air which itself is contained between two locked doors.
When a state inspection of the jail is scheduled, administrators are given plenty of notice. Preparation for inspectors typically includes repainting and refurbishing the corridors and walls. There is always plenty of labor available for those tasks. Some inmates will maintain a naïve hope that inspectors will be shocked by the conditions which fresh paint cannot hide. However, the visitation by state officials is merely a formality, not an effort of oversight. State inspectors prefer to oblige the jail’s administrators by focusing on the reconditioned corridors, which is the only place the inspectors apparently go. If the inspectors were interested in the facts, they would keep their arrival date a secret. The inspectors surely do not see 85 or more men crammed into 1-2, the classification dorm, a number commonly reached. They surely did not see a lot, because the inmates never see them.
