A 16-year-old Mercer County boy was locked up twice in the county's adult jail in October and November 2024, spending two separate two-week stints behind bars with grown men despite state officials twice warning that the placement was illegal, according to a new civil rights lawsuit. The boy, identified in court papers only as W.H., says he was strip-searched, pepper-sprayed while naked, and left alone his first night in a cell with no mattress or pillow.
The lawsuit, filed against Mercer County officials and a state judge, accuses them of violating both state law and W.H.'s constitutional rights, according to the New Jersey Monitor. It names Judge Rodney Thompson, who presides over family court in Superior Court's Mercer County vicinage and signed the orders placing W.H. in the jail; Mercer County Executive Dan Benson; and Timothy Friel, warden of the Mercer County jail, as defendants.
According to the lawsuit, Thompson sent W.H. to Mercer House, a youth shelter, after his August 2024 arrest. The teen ran away a few weeks after arriving, the suit alleges, and when police rearrested him, Thompson ordered him placed in the adult jail instead. The New Jersey Youth Justice Commission twice warned officials that housing him there was illegal and told them to immediately stop detaining youth at the jail, the complaint states, but W.H. was sent there anyway.
No Mattress, Pepper Spray and an Exposed Teen
The suit alleges that during his first stint, W.H. was held alone in a cell without a mattress or pillow on his first night and was exposed to adult inmates. He also said he saw and heard another underage boy at the jail, according to the complaint. After two weeks, W.H. returned to Mercer House, but the suit says he was sent back to the county jail for another two-week stretch following a fight at the shelter.
W.H. was eventually transferred to juvenile detention facilities in Middlesex and Essex counties and was released to a relative in February 2025, the lawsuit alleges. He was held pretrial the entire time and had not been adjudicated delinquent, according to the complaint. His attorneys say he suffered lasting emotional and psychological injuries as a result.
Attorneys Alexander Shalom and Jennifer Bagger Jamerson wrote in the complaint that the repeated detention of a child in an adult jail suggests a policy and practice of violating children's constitutional rights, arguing the treatment amounted to deliberate indifference and cruel and unusual punishment. “You can’t house children in adult jails,” Shalom said, adding that W.H. deserves recompense for the violation. He also said children in the youth justice system need greater protection because they are vulnerable and susceptible to harm.
A Jail Built for Adults, a State Short on Juvenile Beds
The Mercer County Correction Center is a century-old, 871-bed mixed-custody men's facility outside Lambertville, and officials have called for its closure for a decade, dating back to 2016, per the same account. Inmates have separately sued over conditions there. Mercer County has no juvenile detention facility of its own and typically houses in-custody youth in neighboring counties, including Middlesex.
That gap reflects a statewide shortage: only seven New Jersey counties — Atlantic, Bergen, Camden, Essex, Middlesex, Morris and Ocean — operate juvenile detention facilities, and the other 14 counties typically contract with them for space. The New Jersey Code of Juvenile Justice prohibits placing anyone under 18 in an adult prison, jail or lockup and prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment, the article notes.
The plaintiffs are asking a court to declare both W.H.'s 2024 detention and the broader practice of placing children in adult jails unconstitutional violations of state law, and to bar officials from placing other youths in adult lockups in the future.
Juvenile Bed Shortage Has Sparked Fights Elsewhere
The scarcity of juvenile beds has already triggered a separate legal battle in Atlantic County, which sued the state Youth Justice Commission in September 2024, accusing it of failing to manage placements for youth charged with crimes. Atlantic County officials complained that overcrowding at its own facility caused riots and delays in placements, according to nj.com.
The state countersued, with the Juvenile Justice Commission alleging Atlantic County itself was responsible for fixing the overcrowding at its facility, according to the Press of Atlantic City. A judge ruled in Atlantic County's favor in December 2024, declaring the commission solely responsible for youth detention statewide and ordering it to take charge, the New Jersey Monitor reports. Separately, a Juvenile Justice Commission order issued November 12 required Harborfields not to exceed its 20-bed capacity and required a plan for managing the crisis, per nj.com.
The numbers underline the strain: New Jersey's seven county youth detention facilities had a combined maximum capacity of just 332 beds statewide, according to nj.com. In Atlantic County, the average length of juvenile detention rose from 28 days in 2020 to 133 days in 2023 — 85 days above the statewide average that year — and Harborfields exceeded its 20-youth capacity limit in 2024, the outlet reported.
