Corrections Commissioner Marcus Hicks is finally on the way out at the Department of Corrections, but a prominent N.J. Senator says it should only be the beginning of a shake up at the troubled state department.
Hicks’s resignation (which was announced Tuesday and will be effective this Friday) comes one day after the release of a blockbuster independent report which provides additional details on the culture of violence which took over New Jersey’s Edna Mahan facility for female prisoners.
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“The replacement of Commissioner Hicks would address half of the leadership failure in the Murphy administration that allowed the abuses and sexual assaults at Edna Mahan to continue for too long,” said Kristin Corrado (R-40).
Republican Assemblywoman Jean Stanfield (R-8) had championed an impeachment resolution to remove Hicks after Governor Murphy refused for months to demand it of his embattled subordinate.
“Governor Murphy’s long overdue solution to the atrocities against women reported at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility is to close the building – eventually – but keep the same failed leadership? Is he kidding?” Stanfield opined on Monday, 24 hours before Hicks’s resignation was announced. “It’s insane to believe the current commissioner, who looked the other way while a culture of rape and abuse permeated the facility, will be able to turn things around at a new facility. Governor Murphy and the Democrats in Trenton should be ashamed. They failed these women again. How many second chances do they need to get this right? It’s time to advance my impeachment resolution, now.”
Victoria Kuhn will reprotedly serve as interim commissioner.
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