A new federal lawsuit, brought on behalf of nine inmates at the Middlesex County jail, challenges solitary confinement in C-pod.
NORTH BRUNSWICK -- For more than a year and a half, one inmate in Middlesex County jail's C-pod hasn't breathed fresh air or seen natural sunlight.
He and the nearly 50 others lodged in solitary confinement at the facility in North Brunswick eat their meals next to toilets in cells roughly the size of parking spaces. They sleep on thin foam mattresses; there's a desk in the room, but usually no chair. Their families can't visit. They're in their cells 23 hours a day five days a week, and 24 hours a day the other two. Even when they're allowed outside of the cell, they can't speak to other inmates.
And now, nine of those inmates are suing in federal court, arguing that the dark and unforgiving life in C-pod of the Middlesex County Adult Corrections Center violates their Constitutional rights.
"In C-Pod," their lawyers write in one passage, "time passes in long silences broken by the sudden outbursts of the mentally ill, who scream, bang on the walls and toilets, and jump on the beds in their cells."
The suit represents a fresh challenge to the practice of solitary confinement at a time when incarceration policies are coming under scrutiny in the United States, which has the highest prison population rate in the world. The growing unease with solitary confinement also comes amid mounting evidence of its harmful effects on inmates' mental health, which one psychologist has described as "social death."
"Instead of promoting public safety, these conditions cause inmates to spiral into mental illness before they are released into the community," lawyers argue in a complaint filed last week in federal court.
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The plaintiffs are Azariah Lazar, Luis Borrero, Hector Amengual, Sean Pershing, Tyson Ratliff, Jonathan Rodriguez, Terrence Edwards, Damani Harris and Patrick O'Dwyer.
They face a range of charges -- Rodriguez, for example, was indicted for murder, while O'Dwyer was arrested in an alleged strong-armed robbery. Three have been in solitary confinement for at least a year, even though they have not yet been convicted.
The class-action suit asks for the inmates to be transferred out of C-pod, or for policy changes -- like allowing inmates to exercise outdoors, increasing the time out of a cell, allowing family visits or providing in-cell programming on headphones. All of that is feasible, the lawyers argue, in a county with nearly half a billion dollars in appropriations in 2014.
Jail officials say these inmates are kept in these small cells to keep them safe from other inmates, for disciplinary infractions, or to keep them away from co-defendants who are in other parts of the facility -- sometimes for months and even years on end, and usually before they've been convicted of the charges they face.
A county spokeswoman said the county has not reviewed the suit, so it could not comment.
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Lawyers for the nine defendants will argue that such deprivation violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, and the 14th Amendment, which provides due process.
"There are lesser restrictive alternatives that would keep the jail administration and other inmates safe, but also allow these people basic fundamental constitutional rights," said Jennifer Sellitti, deputy public defender in Middlesex County.
In some ways, Middlesex County jail's C-pod is even more restrictive than the supermax prisons in Massachusetts where she used to have clients, Sellitti said. Those prisons at least had outdoor exercise areas. New York offers programming on headphones, the plaintiffs say. In reaction to a federal lawsuit, California agreed to sweeping reforms of solitary confinement practices at Pelican Bay State Prison.
Fletcher Duddy, another plaintiff's attorney, said the "totality of restrictions" is what's at issue here. Duddy likened the solitary confinement in Middlesex County to something from the 19th century, or "The Count of Monte Cristo." Most solitary inmates have small windows that are painted over or so dirty that no light gets through, Duddy said. The floors are concrete and the bulbs are fluorescent. When lawyers visit, they often see inmates sleeping, or sitting on their beds, staring at the wall.
Luzare, for one, was placed in solitary confinement for a disciplinary infraction. That was supposed to last at most 30 days, Duddy said. It's gone on for a year and a half.
Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
