For Immediate Release: January 10, 2017
Contact: Amos Caley, the NJ Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; (260) 224-0376

New Jersey Community Leaders Hold Rally Calling For an End to Solitary Confinement

Trenton, NJ -  Human rights advocates are preparing to assemble on Wednesday, January 11th along Cass Street outside New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. They will be condemning the use of solitary confinement in New Jersey prisons.

The rally is scheduled for 12:00pm and is being hosted by the New Jersey Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (NJ-CAIC), whose members and co-sponsors include 18 advocacy organizations and many additional faith and community groups.

Bonnie Kerness, director of the Prison Watch Program at the American Friends Service Committee, is one of the members of NJ-CAIC scheduled to speak at the rally. “We’ve been monitoring human rights abuses in New Jersey prisons for decades,” says Kerness, “and since the use of isolation on prisoners was truly pioneered here, it is necessary that New Jersey becomes the first state to definitively ban this practice. Holding people in small cells for months or years at a time is torture, no matter what you choose to call it.”

Last October, NJ-CAIC and its allies celebrated the full passage of S.51/A.547 through both houses of the New Jersey legislature. Titled “The Isolated Confinement Restriction Act,” it aimed to dramatically reduce the number of prisoners housed in isolation units and called for stronger protocols and greater transparency by the Department of Corrections. In December, Governor Chris Christie vetoed the bill, and published a memo stating that New Jersey does not use solitary confinement.

According to Rev. Charles Boyer, NJ-CAIC member and pastor of Bethel AME Church, “Governor Christie’s statement, even more than his veto, indicates his unwillingness to stand for issues that deeply matter to people of faith and moral conscience. We have a truly broken criminal justice system, and the people of New Jersey need to come together to demand change. We cannot trust criminal justice reform to this administration.”

Senator Raymond Lesniak, the primary sponsor of S.51, plans to speak at the rally, healthcare advocates, formerly incarcerated individuals, faith leaders, and human rights groups. Delivering the keynote address will be Larry Hamm, president of the People’s Organization for Progress.  

Sponsor organizations of the rally:
American Civil Liberties Union, NJ
American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights Program
American Friends Service Committee Prison Watch Program
Campaign to End the New Jim Crow, Trenton and Princeton Chapters
Health Professionals and Allied Employees, NJ
Integrated Justice Alliance
Jewish Alliance for Change
Lutheran Episcopal Advocacy Ministries, NJ
National Religious Campaign Against Torture
People’s Organization for Progress
Students for Prison Education and Reform, Princeton University
T’ruah, the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry, NJ Salvation and Social Justice Coalition
Women Who Never Give Up, Inc.
NJ Association of Black Psychologists
United Methodist Church Board of Church and Society of Greater NJ
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
Additional advocates, faith leaders, and congregational committees in NJ

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