Court Blocks NJDOC Transfers
A court in New Jersey has halted all further transfers of women inmates to New Jersey State Prison, a men’s Supermax.
“These rulings amount to a sweeping victory for women prisoners who have suffered grossly unfair and inhumane treatment at the hands of the Department of Corrections,” said Mie Lewis, lead American Civil Liberties Union counsel for the case. “We are delighted that after thoroughly analyzing the arguments on both sides, the court has vindicated the rights of women prisoners.”
The class action lawsuit, Jones v. Hayman, filed by the ACLU and the ACLU of New Jersey in December 2007, challenges the DOC’s transfer of a group of women prisoners to NJSP where women are denied basic movement in the prison, deprived of access to the prison law library and the prison school, barred from the prison’s main yard and denied access to basic hygiene. The lawsuit charges the women’s transfer and their oppressive conditions of confinement are unconstitutional and discriminatory based on their sex.
More in the article at Common Dreams.