Inside New Jersey's Most Notorious County Jail Now Abandoned

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Built for $1.8 million, the Passaic County Jail was designed to hold 230 inmates when it opened in 1957 in downtown Patterson, New Jersey. But in the decades that followed, the population frequently swelled to more than 1,500 triggering class-action lawsuits in by inmates in 1979 and 2008 over squalid conditions, inadequate medical care, and visitation rights.
A 2008 class action lawsuit claimed that the Passaic County Jail had long been marred with severe overcrowding and subpar conditions.
The 51-page suit, filed in federal court in Newark, outlined a catalogue of misery that has persisted for decades despite repeated calls for improved inmate care and for upgrades to then 55-year-old Paterson facility.
"People have talked about Abu Ghraib in Iraq. I think we should be looking closer to home," said Chris Michie, a Princeton lawyer working pro bono on the case. "The conditions in which these people are forced to live are just inhumane and an embarrassment to any civilized person."
The suit claims conditions at the jail violate the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, with overcrowding the most serious of the problems. The jail was designed to hold 896 inmates. In 2008 it held 1,774 nearly twice its capacity.
Inmates were "crammed like sardines" into cells and bunks, only one foot apart, which violated state guidelines, the suit contends. Because there is too little space overall, inmates eat at tables situated 6 feet from toilets. Rat and mouse droppings were routinely found in food, a symptom of a widespread rodent and insect infestation, lawyers for the inmates wrote.
In the summer, the suit states, many parts of the jail climb to well over 100 degrees, exacerbating medical conditions and creating a "dangerously tense atmosphere" that leads to fights. The winter months were little better, with the jail so cold that inmates can see their breath.
Throughout the year, a failing ventilation system spat out dust, dirt and fibers, and mold grows on the walls and ceiling, according to the suit.
Inmates told the lawyers they are menaced with dogs and routinely beaten by guards. In addition, the suit says inmates who file grievances over the jail's conditions are subject to retribution in the form of physical abuse or transfers to rougher cell blocks.
The lawsuit further contended the state is complicit in the jail's troubles because successive administrations have failed to force the jail to comply with state rules and regulations.
Aside from the two class action lawsuits, there was a long paper trail that included
news reports detailing all the years of uprisings, escapes, beatings, and inmate deaths from suicides, drugs and violence. The violence and unrest led the state to dub Passaic County Jail the worst in all of New Jersey in 1977. Then Sheriff Edwin Englehardt was unfazed. Sheriff Englehardt would stay in power all the way until 2001, when he stepped down amid a federal investigation into corruption within Passaic County government. He died in 2023.
Conditions at the jail worsened when his successor, Jerry Speziale, began accepting inmates from other jurisdictions on a per diem basis to add revenue to the budget. The ACLU and the Seton Hall Law School led the next class-action lawsuit in federal court, aimed at reducing crowding and bringing the jail, which had no air-conditioning and an inadequate sprinkler system, up to code.
Passaic County spent millions to upgrade the jail, and satisfy a federal consent order issued in 2012. The improvements were short-lived.
New Jersey’s bail reform law went into effect in 2017 and is largely responsible for reducing overcrowding in the county jails. Passaic County then entered into a shared-services agreement with Bergen County to send its inmates to the jail in Hackensack.
Passaic County Jail in Paterson, New Jersey officially closed in December 2021, when inmates were moved to the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack. The jail is now being demolished to make room for office space and a parking lot.