As state officials intensify demands to inspect Newark’s Delaney Hall immigration detention center, New Jersey has not publicly posted routine state prison inspection reports on its corrections oversight website since 2022.
New Jersey officials are continuing their push for unrestricted access to inspect Delaney Hall, the privately operated federal immigration detention center in Newark, while public reporting on inspections of the state’s own prison system has largely stalled.
On Wednesday, Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, and Health Commissioner Raynard Washington criticized GEO Group after Department of Health inspectors said they were denied full access to Delaney Hall for a second time. State officials have also filed litigation seeking to compel a complete inspection of the facility.
State officials demand full access at Delaney Hall
“Today, my health inspectors were once again denied full access to Delaney Hall, including the medical unit,” Sherrill said. “This is unacceptable and continues to raise serious questions about what DHS and the GEO Group are hiding at Delaney Hall.”
Attorney General Davenport cited reports of unsanitary conditions, inadequate medical care, and a reported tuberculosis case while questioning why inspectors were prevented from accessing all areas of the facility.
Health Commissioner Washington added that “health inspections are not political” and said unrestricted inspections are necessary to identify potential public health risks.
State inspection website has not been updated in years
At the same time, New Jersey’s own Corrections Ombudsperson website continues to list annual reports through 2022, along with facility inspection reports dating primarily from 2021 and 2022. No newer inspection reports are publicly available through that page despite multiple years having passed.
For a short time, those reports were published online here, but have not been published since 2022. The state has either not published investigations or conducted investigations since 2022, according to data on the Ombudsman website.
However, the Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson has continued conducting inspections. One example is a September 2025 inspection report on the West Compound at New Jersey State Prison that documented aging infrastructure, extremely small cells, lack of hot water in cells, no air conditioning, limited shower privacy, and renewed recommendations that the nearly 200-year-old housing units be demolished and replaced.
That report found prison staff were professional and identified areas meeting inspection standards, while also concluding that long-standing structural deficiencies remain unresolved. The ombudsperson recommended funding demolition of the West Compound, adopting minimum prison cell standards, increasing shower privacy, relocating some incarcerated people to other facilities, and improving tracking of out-of-cell time.
Transparency questions extend beyond one facility
The differing circumstances have prompted questions about transparency and oversight. State officials have argued that private detention facilities operating in New Jersey should be subject to full health inspections and public accountability.
Meanwhile, members of the public seeking information about conditions inside New Jersey’s correctional facilities may find that the state’s primary inspection webpage has not been regularly updated with newer reports, even as inspections have continued.
The Delaney Hall litigation remains pending, and the Department of Health continues to seek full access to inspect the federally operated detention center.
Key Points
- New Jersey officials are demanding unrestricted inspections of Delaney Hall after inspectors said they were denied full access for a second time.
- The state’s public corrections inspection webpage has not been regularly updated with newer prison inspection reports since 2022, even though inspections have continued.
- A 2025 Ombudsperson report documented significant structural deficiencies at New Jersey State Prison’s West Compound and renewed calls for its replacement.
