By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, January 30, 1992
The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | Page: B01
Conditions that led Bergen County Jail inmates to file a class-action suit against the county and state remain largely unchanged since a sanitary expert last inspected the jail more than a year ago, the expert testified Wednesday in Newark.
Ward Duel, who was hired by the state Department of the Public Advocate after it had filed the suit on behalf of the inmates, said that upon reinspection Wednesday he found some improvements in health and food services. Duel said other jail facilities and programs had deteriorated, however.
The suit, filed in 1988, charges that overcrowding in the jail and its annex exacerbates violations of inmates constitutional rights. Of 984 inmates currently in the jail which has a rated capacity of 423 inmates 379 are state-sentenced prisoners.
Duel, an Illinois consultant who has seen prison conditions in 33 states, inspected the jail and testified extensively in 1990 on what he saw there.
Wednesday morning he reinspected the jail to look for improvements; during a resumed hearing on the suit, he said that he did not find many.
Inmates still contend with filthy walls, mouse droppings, sewage dripping from overhead pipes in the kitchen, unsafe electrical wires, leaky fixtures, and toilets that back up, he testified.
For instance, damage done to the annex during a June 1990 riot has not been repaired, Duel said. In that riot, inmates ripped out urinals and sinks and smashed toilets and windows. Some dormitory and cell areas in the annex have worsened, he added. In one area, he said, he was unable to turn on 18 of 36 lights.
“I think one of the conditions that contributed to the lack of good housekeeping is that the building is so dark,” he said. “You need good lighting in order to have good housecleaning.
“My overall evaluation of the annex has not changed. I was disappointed to see the new pods deteriorating.”
One of the areas Duel said had improved, food services, was the focus of a Jan. 11 protest in which an inmate was bitten by a guard’s dog when corrections officers tried to restore order. Inmates involved in that protest are scheduled to testify in the hearing next week.
Neither Deputy Bergen County Counsel Murshell Johnson nor Deputy Attorney General Catherine M. Brown would comment on Duel’s testimony Wednesday. The hearings are scheduled to continue today and are expected to last at least through February.
Jerrold B. Binney, chief of staff to Bergen County Executive William “Pat” Schuber, said Tuesday that the county has set up a jail advisory committee that monitors the sanitary and safety conditions cited and is developing a master plan to develop long-term solutions to problems in the jail.
Talks to settle the suit out of court broke down late last year. The hearings are being conducted by James R. Zazzali, a special master appointed by U.S. District Judge Harold A. Ackerman in September 1989 to make recommendations based on the hearings.
ID: 17367448 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)