Essex County Jail Annex

The austere and intimidating facade of the Essex County Jail Annex in Caldwell, NJ effectively foreshadows the horrors one would endure within.

Updated July 25, 2022 | By Matthew Christopher

Built in 1872/3, the Essex County Jail Annex (EJCA, or Escopen, as it came to be known) was constructed with locally quarried brownstone on the border dividing Caldwell and Verona, New Jersey. The imposing Italianate Victorian structure was perched atop a hill and originally included the jail itself and a farm. Over the years additions included the Men's Building, Women's Building, a Power Plant, the Shoe Shop, and the "New" Wing, constructed in 1923. Until the 1980s the jail housed between 450 to 550 inmates.

In 1983 the New Wing was closed because it had deteriorated past the point of being able to safely house inmates, reducing the capacity of the prison by 200 beds, but the population was steadily rising and by 1986 passed 1,000. Despite the fact that no repairs had been made, the New Wing was reopened and prisoners were crammed into areas that had formerly not been intended for them, such as the Shoe Shop, the basement of the Women's Building, and visitation areas. Corridor areas were filled with stretchers and cots with very little room for movement, and as a result prisoners were without day areas or space to keep personal belongings. Roughly half of the population had not yet been convicted of a crime, but were awaiting their dispositions.

Bunk beds lining the corridors of the cell blocks may have been due to notoriously overcrowded conditions inside the Essex County Jail Annex.

Rodents and insects including ants, fleas, roaches, waterbugs, and flies infested cells, toilets, and food preparation areas. The roofing and ceilings were rotted and crumbling, and window panes fell from the frames regularly onto areas where the stretchers and cots were placed, at times injuring inmates. Toilets and sinks didn't flush or sprayed water into the cells, and bedding was placed in areas where water had pooled from radiators. Some areas only had two functioning toilets for 30 inmates. Showers were covered with black and green slime and lacked temperature regulation, so water would vary wildly between extremely hot and extremely cold. In addition, water wouldn't drain properly, flooding the showers with water that reeked of sewage; water that leaked from the ceiling caused rashes and sores on the inmates. Nearly every area of the prison dripped with filthy water, forming stalactites and rusting holes in walls and the floor. Reeking puddles formed in the food serving areas and when paired with exposed electrical wires presented the threat of electrocution. Dirt, garbage, mold, and mildew were everywhere, and the ventilation system didn't work properly so heat and humidity during the summer months were intolerable.

Inmates were not medically screened when they were brought into the prison and lacked access to adequate medical care. The infirmary often wasn't properly staffed at times to even give medications to patients who needed them, including those who needed it for conditions such as asthma. Prisoners lacked access to activity areas, gyms, law libraries, courtyards. There were no consistent emergency precautions in place, and many of the guards were considered temporary or probationary and had not received training.

Multi-tiered cell blocks at the Essex County Jail Annex are reminiscent of something out of a horror movie or a nightmare.

Unsurprisingly, the conditions did not improve the disposition of inmates, and the tension led to an atmosphere of constant fear and violence. In one instance in 2003, a 19 year old named Lamonte Gallemore was arrested and transferred to a unit housing gang members despite having no affiliation with any gangs. He was brutally beaten by the showers and died. He had only been in the prison several hours. His family attempted to file a complaint and documents related to the incident were subpoenaed, but the prison simply ignored court orders. Repeated attempts to legally pursue the matter were similarly ignored until 2009, when the county counsel ruled that too much time had passed and personnel had changed.

In 2004 EJCA was closed to consolidate it with another prison in Newark that was built on top of a landfill contaminated with lead, petroleum, and arsenic. The site remained vacant until it was torn down in 2010 despite the protests of historians and preservationists, its demise hastened after a police officer was injured chasing vandals through the complex at night. A housing complex was built on the property and in 2012 the Borough Council elected to build a monument to the prison made of bars and doors on the field where prisoners once worked. It is the only trace of the prison that remains.

The visiting area at the Essex County Jail Annex, viewed from the prisoners' side

The idea of incarcerating criminals as punishment for their crimes is an American one. Jails existed long before our country was found, but were used primarily to house prisoners until their sentence, be it corporal punishment, public humiliation, or execution, was carried out. There also were debtor's prisons, where people were held until they paid off all or a portion of what they owed, but this had nothing to do with committing crimes. This changed with the introduction of the penitentiary.

Proposed by the Quakers, penitentiaries were supposed to be more humane response to crime than corporal punishment or execution. The prisoners were kept in absolute silence and seclusion for extended periods of time so they could reflect on their crimes and thereby learn the error of their ways. The penitentiary system became a model upon which many other countries based their penal systems - it was viewed as more enlightened to isolate criminals from everyone and everything, even if it did have the disturbing side effect of frequently driving them mad. Eventually penitentiaries relaxed their standards, allowing prisoners to speak with guards or each other on a limited basis.

As crime in cities dramatically increased during the industrial age, prisons became an increasingly popular solution to nearly every social ill. Prison populations soared and crimes punishable by imprisonment multiplied. As the initial ideal - that of bludgeoning prisoners into remorse with vast, empty stretches of time - faded away, there was little that replaced it. Various improvements on the methodology of incarceration were proposed, such as Jeremy Bentham's fascinating and imposing Panopticon prison layout, but the theory behind its use as a form of punishment were (arguably) never successfully updated. While hotly debated among some circles, the prevailing belief was that those who commit crimes require punitive intervention in the form of removing them from surrounding society and placing them in harsh and brutal environments. Critics viewed prisons as little more than crime universities, where the amateur crook networks with and learns from those who are more hardened and feckless, and likely graduates with a greater knowledge of their trade and a deep and abiding hatred of the society that would condemn them to such treatment. While the penal system flirted with the idea of using prisons to rehabilitate criminals to become productive members of society, recidivism rates for those imprisoned are high and the United States leads the world in the number and percentage of its population behind bars.

The Essex County Jail Annex cafeteria

The horrors of the prison system can be grossly disproportionate to the offenses committed, and statistics prove again and again that prison sentences are sharply biased by a criminal's racial and economic standing. Nevertheless, the problem remains: what does one do to deter crimes? How does society as a whole discourage theft, extortion, and the myriad of other offenses men and women are imprisoned for if not by incarceration? Is there ever a sympathetic or humane way to punish someone? Is it even possible to mitigate the damage done by such barbaric crimes as rape and murder, and if so, how? When the very concept of justice is so subjective, is it possible to attain it with the impartiality that its implementation as a form of a social institution demands?

There are no simple answers to these problems. Opinions seem to be sharply divided as to whether prisons are too harsh or too lenient, yet the existence of the prison system itself - and the dilemma of how to respond to crimes if not with incarceration - is rarely challenged. I see places like the Essex County Jail Annex as masses of unanswered questions, not as the solutions that our comfortable belief in our social superiority supposes. Perhaps one day someone with wisdom far greater than my own will concoct an entirely new and more effective response to the darkness in the human heart and the wretched acts that mankind commits, and all prisons will stand as empty as this one.

One can always hope.

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The Essex County Jail Annex is a chapter in my book, Abandoned America: Age of Consequences.
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