With one more year in office and a possible indictment, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) just vetoed a bill that will have devastating consequences for prisoners long after he is gone. This week, he doomed countless pregnant women and people with mental illness to indefinite solitary confinement, calling legislation that would end their isolation “[irresponsible]” and “breathtaking” while ignoring research that likens the practice to torture.
On Monday, the governor vetoed a bill passed by the legislature in October that banned solitary for pregnant women and prisoners suffering from mental health problems. The bill also scaled back isolation for all state prisoners by limiting it to 15 consecutive days in a single month, or 20 days over a two-month period. In short, it effectively ended the common practice of indefinite isolation, which entails 23-hour lock-down in a cell with no outside contact, and which scientists, lawmakers, faith leaders and prison reform advocates agree causes visual and auditory impairment, damages the part of the brain that produces memory and emotion, exacerbates preexisting mental health conditions, and leads to deadly neglect. It also required routine medical check-ups on everyone locked in solitary.
But instead of limiting an inhumane policy, Christie steamrolled the reform effort and accused the state’s Democratic leaders of endangering lives.
“The irresponsibility of this bill, and the resulting peril in which it could place both inmates and corrections officers every day, is truly breathtaking,” he wrote in a scathing message. “This is the danger of legions of Democratic legislators blindly following the rhetoric of prime sponsors who typically legislate by bumper stick slogans.”
Christie argued that New Jersey’s Department of Corrections (DOC) already provides adequate “medical, dental, and mental health services” to prisoners in solitary, and accused Democrats of launching a “rudimentary investigation” that ignored current DOC operations.
But according to Senior Staff Attorney Alexander Shalom of the American Civil Liberties Union’s New Jersey branch, lawmakers consulted “county jail wardens, corrections officers’ unions, and mental health experts” before passing the bill. “Christie’s veto of solitary confinement reform means that on any given day hundreds of New Jersey inmates, if not thousands, will be punished through a practice widely considered torture, and for no one’s benefit,” he wrote in a statement.
Indeed, with his veto and accompanying message, Christie ignored research that disproves the myth that solitary confinement keeps prisoners and correctional staff safe and reduces violence behind bars. He also showed total disregard for the growing national, bipartisan push to end solitary altogether.
In 2014, a record number of states implemented laws to restrict the use of solitary confinement because of its adverse impact on inmate health and safety. State reforms continued in 2015, and this year, President Barack Obama banned solitary confinement for all juveniles and low-level offenders doing time in all federal facilities.
“How can we subject prisoners to unnecessary solitary confinement, knowing its effects, and then expect them to return to our communities as whole people?” Obama wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “It doesn’t make us safer. It’s an affront to our common humanity.”
Last year, state senator and author of the New Jersey bill Raymond Lesniak (D) said the state had not reviewed — let alone altered — its solitary confinement policies for approximately 50 years. With his recent decision, Christie thwarted the best effort to help the most vulnerable people behind bars.
This post previously stated that Christie’s term ends next month, but he will remain in office until January 2018.