New Jersey Prison Facing Multiple Assault Allegations Is Hit With New Lawsuit

In January four corrections officers at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in New Jersey were indicted on sexual assault charges. An investigation from New Jersey Advance Media found that inmates at the all-women’s prison had suffered sexual abuse and assault by guards going far back as 2008, and that the prison had fired three officers after one was alleged to have abused a dozen inmates.

It was a discovery that led to lawmakers requesting the state’s attorney general to investigate sex abuse in the prison. On December 6 two more inmates filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court, saying that they were “forced into sexual acts with a number of corrections officers,” two of whom were already charged in cases involving other incarcerated women at the facility.

This is far from the first time the prison has been sued for sexual assault and harassment. In September an inmate filed a federal lawsuit against claiming she was sexually assaulted by two corrections officers, saying she reported the incidents to authorities, only to be punished for doing so by being placed in solitary confinement or losing recreational privileges. In 2015, a female guard at the prison filed a suit against the state after she said her male supervisor sexually harassed her on multiple occasions. And in 2014, an inmate sued the prison for failing to provide her with adequate treatment for her mental and physical health.