News & Commentary

Two years after its creation, the Essex County Correctional Facility Task Force has not met some of its most basic responsibilities.

Reducing our prison population was necessary to save lives from COVID-19. Keeping our prison population down is necessary to save lives from an unjust criminal legal system.

The New Jersey Department of Corrections recently agreed to adopt a system-wide policy to help protect transgender, intersex, and non-binary people in prisons. This was the result of an agreement settling a civil rights suit brought by a woman who was forced to live in men’s prisons for a year and a half, represented by the ACLU of New Jersey and attorney Robyn Gigl of Gluck Walrath LLP. The new policy includes housing in line with gender identity, appropriate use of pronouns, access to gender-affirming property, and more.

The ACLU-NJ and Garden State Equality wrote every county jail urging new policies mirroring changes in NJ prisons respecting the rights of transgender people, the result of a civil rights settlement.

Incarcerated people, including immigrants in detention, are among the most vulnerable when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 16, 2020, the ACLU of New Jersey sent a letter to every county jail in New Jersey with recommendations to prevent an outbreak and minimize the virus’s impact.

Mark Hopkins survived more than 180 days of solitary confinement in New Jersey prisons. His story helped lead New Jersey to strictly limit its use of the practice.

Nafeesah Goldsmith survived solitary confinement, locked in a cell for months for 23 hours per day. Her powerful story helped lead New Jersey to pass a law strictly limiting solitary confinement. She spoke about the 'diabolical' experience of solitary and the movement to end the practice.

New Jersey made history on Jan. 1, 2017, when it essentially ended money bail — thanks to years of work by bipartisan advocates and the support of Garden State voters.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Newark Rebellion, the ACLU-NJ revisited the events of July 12-17, 1967, through live-tweeting the events as they would have unfolded in real time.