The Reality of Restorative Housing Units: Isolated Confinement in New Jersey Prisons

Introduction

This story was produced in partnership with the Inside/Out Journalism Project by Type Investigations, which works with incarcerated reporters to produce ambitious, feature-length investigations, with support from the Wayne Barrett Project.

Nathan Gray’s Experience

Nathan Gray often found himself pacing his cramped cell, barraged night and day by the sound of other men’s screams. The cell was chilly, with a paper-thin mattress, a small shelf for his belongings and a combined sink and toilet. In this small space, he ate his meals, read Frantz Fanon and Angela Davis and slept when he could. When depression overwhelmed him, he had no one to talk to. He didn’t tell his family about the conditions he was forced to deal with; he didn’t want to worry them.

Living Conditions in Restorative Housing Units

Gray and his neighbors were permitted to leave their cells for only a handful of reasons each week: to take three showers, for example, or make five 15-minute phone calls, or use an email kiosk to send messages to friends and family on the outside. Sometimes, they were allowed to hang out in one of the holding cells in the unit, known as “cages,” or in outdoor enclosed spaces.

Gray’s description of the living conditions in his unit sounds like those experienced by people held in solitary confinement across the U.S.: severe restrictions on movement, moratoriums on physical contact and nearly 24-hour spans spent in cells about the size of bathrooms.

The Creation of Restorative Housing Units

The Department of Corrections created RHUs in response to the 2019 passage of the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, a law intended to reform the use of solitary confinement in New Jersey correctional facilities. At the time, ICRA was the most progressive solitary confinement reform law in the nation.

The law put strict limits on NJDOC’s use of solitary confinement — which is referred to as “isolated confinement,” and is defined as holding a person “in a cell or similarly confined holding or living space, alone or with other inmates” for 20 or more hours per day “with severely restricted activity, movement, and social interaction.”

Issues with Restorative Housing Units

Gray is far from the only person incarcerated in New Jersey who says their experience in an RHU varied little, if at all, from time spent in administrative segregation before ICRA was implemented. An 18-month investigation by Type Investigations and Agency found that conditions in some of these Restorative Housing Units may qualify as isolated confinement under the department’s own definition and defy state regulations, and appear at times to violate the law.

NJDOC did not respond to specific questions about conditions in the RHUs. In an emailed statement, an NJDOC spokesperson said the department “continuously evaluates compliance with ICRA as with all statutory requirements,” and that it “assesses policies and procedures for ensuring incarcerated persons are afforded the required out-of-cell time, opportunities for receiving essential programs and services, and safeguarding staff and incarcerated persons.”

The Impact on Incarcerated Individuals

Several incarcerated people who have lived in RHUs told us that they were not regularly offered at least four hours of daily out-of-cell time. Our sources, who have spent time in RHUs in four prisons, also said people in these units often spent their out-of-cell time in confined spaces they compared to dog kennels, and received little to no mental health care.

Alexander Shalom, a senior supervising attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey who was closely involved with drafting the law, expressed “profound disappointment” when he heard about these allegations.

The Isolated Confinement Restriction Act

Advocates were elated when Murphy signed the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act. The version of ICRA signed into law “was something that we hadn’t even dreamed of being able to do, and we really had to force the governor to sign it, which led us to believe that this was a huge win,” Rev. J. Amos Caley, an organizer with New Jersey Prison Justice Watch, recalled.

Caley, Goldsmith and other activists had worked for years to get a law on the books that would limit the use of solitary confinement. They’d come close to victory before, pushing a version of the law through the state legislature in 2016. But nearly two months after the passage of the original Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, then-Gov. Chris Christie (R) vetoed the bill.