On December 12, 2025, Jean Wilson Brutus died in his first day in the Delaney Hall ICE detention center. In 2009, Derek West Harris died in 2009 when Delaney Hall was a halfway house, and Garrison Bryant died in 2022, when the facility was a privately owned annex of the Essex County Jail. Based on the evidence I have collected, the level of accountability for the deaths of detainees in Delaney Hall has diminished since it was turned into a private ICE detention center. The deaths of West and Bryant did not lead to massive change in the incarceration system, nor did it demolish Delaney Hall and its potential to be a place of incarceration. However, there were some consequences and political scrutiny against the people running the facility in the past.

Figure 1 Ambulance outside Delaney Hall, 2026.

In my analysis, I am borrowing two important ideas from incarceration scholars. As Silky Shah argues, we must view the system of prisons and the system of immigration detention centers as “intertwined systems of repression.” The increased focus on “fighting crime” since the 1970s is correlated with the expansion of immigration agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).[1] When examining death in incarceration, Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s assessment that racism “is the state sanctioned or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death,” helps us understand how people of color are made vulnerable to premature death, whether in criminal carceral or immigration detention facilities.[2]

Case by Case Review of Deaths and Accountability

The history of death in Delaney Hall begins with Derrek Harris West. At this time, the facility was a halfway house, a part of a prison that is supposed to be specifically for people being taught to re-integrate into society again. West died when a group of other detainees who heard he had cash visited his dorm and beat him until he was unconscious. The conditions of Delaney Hall were responsible to West’s death for two reasons. First, the population in Delaney Hall was mixed with detainees who were being trained to re-integrate into society and detainees who were serving sentences in the Essex County jail. One of the people involved in attacking Brutus was transferred back and forth between the county jail and Delaney Hall because of behavior problems. This same person was part of the group assigned by the facility to welcome and give the new detainees a tour. The man who was involved in attacking Brutus knew he had money because he was part of this welcoming group. The second problem was the poorly trained staff. Joe Amato, president of the Essex County corrections officers' union at the time described the staff at Delaney Hall as a “staff full of counselors, former inmates as employees as part of a rehabilitation program.”[3] The staff were nowhere to be found when the incident took place, and it took them more than 10 minutes to show up. The consequences were not significant enough. The state investigated halfway houses and their operations. Yet, Delaney Hall remained and became part of Essex County Jail.

The death of Garrison Bryant happened in 2022, when Delaney Hall was privately owned by GEO group and by Education and Health Centers of America (EHCA).[4] Bryant died when a group of other inmates attacked him and used cleaning supplies like a broom to beat him up and hit him in the head. Bryant went to medical staff but was not given any medications despite having significant pain. He resorted to getting drugs from other detainees which led to him overdosing and dying. Bryant’s case was another moment where the staff in Delaney Hall were nowhere to be seen to handle and prevent these kinds of violent interactions. It also exposed the facility’s physical conditions as a liability to the safety of the detainees. Despite being held and treated like prisoners, detainees like Bryant, were in “dorms” without locks where they could roam around at night when there are fewer guards.[5]

There was more scrutiny against the facility and the people running it. New Jersey and Essex County launched investigations into the operations and management of Delaney Hall. An independent party, Ambrose, was called on to investigate and analyze the Essex County Jail and Delaney Hall. Ambrose found that contraband entered Delaney Hall through guards and from people throwing them into the open courtyard where detainees would be taken for outdoor recreation.[6] The various investigations did not close the facility on their own. However, the pressure and exposure of the management of Delaney Hall did force the private companies to sell the facility and move their business elsewhere.

The death of Jean Wilson Brutus occurred in December 2025 under the management of GEO group of Delaney Hall as an ICE detention facility. Unlike the cases form the past, Brutus had only been in Delaney Hall for a single day. After being checked into the facility he suffered from a seizure. ICE and GEO group have released almost no information beyond him having an “emergency situation.” The Brutus family have been left to file a lawsuit in an attempt to take GEO group to court and discover what really happened. Brutus’ death has also shown that privatized ICE center has a level of immunity from accountability that has not been seen before in Delaney Hall. Where pervious deaths have led to some sort of investigation to the conditions of the facility, Delaney Hall has continued to operate without disturbances since the death of Brutus.

[1] Shah, Silky. Unbuild Walls: Why Immigration Justice Needs Abolition. Haymarket Books 2024.

[2] Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. University of California Press 2007.

[3] Dolnick, Sam. “At Penal Unit, a Volatile Mix Fuels a Murder”. The New York Times June 18, 2012.

[4] Strunksy, Steve. “Estate of N.J. man who died in custody sues county, jail’s private owner”. NJ.com February 28, 2024. And “Report on Essex County Nj Immigration Detention Expansion | Prison Legal News.” 2026. Prisonlegalnews.org. 2026.

[5] Solomon, Josh and Atmonavage, Joe. “Family: Inmate who died was hit in the head during fight”. Star Ledger, NJ.com March 2022.

[6] The Ambrose Group, “Essex County Correctional Facility Final Report”. September 2022. Pp.65-66