The right choice to conduct investigation of Hudson County Department of Corrections?

Earl Morgan
Jersey Journal
Monday, March 17, 2008

A Hudson County Freeholders' resolution, approved last month, to hire a consulting firm to review practices, policies and procedures in the county's Department of Corrections will be considered by some to be a tepid response to the numerous claims of racial discrimination, favoritism and other offenses alleged by corrections officers.

Given the issues of policies and practices under discussion here - not to mention the raft of lawsuits by employees and former inmates confronting the HCDC - a look-see by the State Commission of Investigation might be a more credible alternative.

Bringing in the SCI to handle the matter will cost the county nothing and the presence of a state agency handling the situation might serve to bolster public confidence in the outcome.

The SCI also comes armed with subpoena power, a useful tool in obtaining records and HCDC documents with a minimum of muss and fuss.

A copy of the proposal by the Colorado company VJRS obtained by The Jersey Journal, shows the document was originally sent to Hudson County Department of Corrections Director Oscar Aviles.

No disrespect to him, but many HCDC employee allegations involve Aviles. So, even before the consultant begins its work, there is a perception - erroneous or not - that the investigatee is choosing his own investigator.

Several weeks ago the Hudson County Administration passed a resolution recognizing the Urban Times News and the Courier, a relatively new publication, as Hudson County's first black newspapers.

That's simply not true. Since the creation of Black History Month was inspired, in part, by the need to give an accurate record of the African-American experience, it's important to get it right.

Jersey City's first black newspaper was the New Jersey Herald News, that was published, continuously, by the brothers Fred and Richard Martin, during the mid 1940s and early 1950s, from their offices on Jersey City's Jackson Avenue. Fred Martin went on to become Jersey City's first African-American councilman.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a Jersey City-based weekly newspaper, "Dusk To Dawn," published by Edward Dorsey. In the interest of full disclosure, this writer worked, as both a reporter and columnist, for that paper.

The Hudson County resolution also cited the late Bobby Jackson and his partner Joe Cardwell, as the founders of the Urban Times News. Actually, the founder of that publication was Liberian native Albert Cooper, just to give credit, acknowledgment and history its due.