The bill, known as the Incarcerated Women’s Protection Act, would enact “gender-responsive” policies from entry through release and reentry, among other things. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)
An Assembly panel advanced legislation Thursday to expand protections for imprisoned women in New Jersey, after brutality and sex abuse scandals drove Gov. Phil Murphy to order the troubled Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women closed and replaced.
The bill, known as the Incarcerated Women’s Protection Act, would enact “gender-responsive” policies from entry through release and reentry, and require the state Department of Corrections to mandate annual gender-specialized training for all correctional officers who supervise imprisoned women.
Bill sponsor Assemblywoman Yvonne Lopez (D-Middlesex) is vice chair of the Assembly’s community development and women’s affairs committee, which heard the bill Thursday.
The bill would codify protections adopted since sexual misconduct problems drove federal authorities to intervene in 2021 and declare oversight, Lopez said. It also builds on a 2020 law she also sponsored, known as the Dignity Act, that set new protections for incarcerated parents and pregnant women, she added.
“The time spent inside of prison informs life after prison, and if we truly want individuals to return and succeed in society, we need to ensure their experience while incarcerated is free from abuse and marked by support from the very beginning,” Lopez said.
The bill also would establish a special victims unit to investigate allegations of sexual assault or misconduct and require investigators to get gender-informed and victim-centered training on how to best investigate such cases.
A division of women’s services would be created to develop policies, programs, and services addressing treatment for physical or sexual abuse, parenting, and child reunification. The bill also would require the department to offer parenting classes, doula services, and family reunification programs for pregnant inmates and counseling and reentry services for women scheduled for release within six months.
Edwin “Chino” Ortiz, who heads a returning citizens support group of Essex and Union counties, called the measure overdue and urged legislators to pass it.
“Because someone commits a crime does not mean that they lose their rights to be treated as a human being,” Ortiz said. “We have a moral obligation as citizens of this state, of this country, to protect those who are most vulnerable and who are supposed to be protected.”
Groups supporting the legislation included the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, Salvation and Social Justice, and the state Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson.
The panel advanced the bill along party lines, with Assemblyman Al Barlas (R-Essex) voting no.
The bill, which has been stalled in the Assembly since it was introduced in September 2024, has a narrow window to make it to the governor’s desk, with the current legislative session set to end in less than a month. The bill’s Senate companion passed in committee but still awaits a full Senate vote.
Murphy in 2021 ordered that Edna Mahan be closed after more than a dozen correctional officers were arrested for brutally assaulting incarcerated women during a violent night of forced cell extractions.
While more than a dozen officers were arrested, a state judge dismissed their criminal indictment in October, citing deficiencies in the indictment and the state’s four-year delay in preparing the case for trial.
Construction on a new 420-bed, $310 million state prison for women began in October in Chesterfield, where the prison will relocate from Clinton.
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