The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
ACLU: CT prisons not complying with terms of COVID suit settlement
The ACLU of Connecticut has raised concerns with the state Department of Correction that officials in the prison system are not complying with the terms of a settlement agreement reached over the summer to protect inmates from the pandemic.
“These systemic patterns of non-compliance are particularly alarming, given rapidly rising positivity rates across Connecticut — and within DOC, as evidenced by the recent outbreak at Hartford Correctional Center,” ACLU of Connecticut attorneys Elana
Bildner and Dan Barrett wrote last week in a letter to the attorneys representing the Department of Correction.
“The amount of work that went into these most basic protections for people in custody was enormous,” Bildner told the Mirror. “For the DOC to fall short is inexcusable and dangerous.”
The ACLU filed lawsuits in state and federal courts at the beginning of the pandemic aimed at increasing COVID-19 protections for inmates. A federal judge approved a settlement agreement in July, over the objections of more than 400 inmates who said it didn’t go far enough. The settlement requires the DOC to provide soap and cleaning supplies to inmates, prioritize elderly and medically vulnerable incarcerated people for release to spare them from catching the virus behind bars, and make their best effort to return people quarantined for COVID-19 to their prior housing, jobs and programs.
The agreement expires on Dec. 31.
The ACLU’s letter alleges the DOC is not adhering to the court mandates in its 14 prisons and jails. Instead, according to the group, the department is following guidelines it adhered to earlier in the pandemic, when infection rates spiked in prisons and jails and sick people were subjected to punitive isolation to ensure the virus didn’t spread.
“The whole point of this agreement was to protect and enshrine the gains that were made,” Bildner said.
“It took so much to get here. We’re not going to let DOC backslide to the earlier stages of the pandemic, back in March [and] April.”
Karen Martucci, the agency’s director of external affairs, said a fivemember monitoring panel established as part of the settlement will address the allegations contained in the ACLU’s letter.
“We are not aware that any of these alleged violations have in fact occurred and are currently looking into them,” Martucci said. “We are committed to adhering to the original agreement, which mainly included provisions already in place as part of the agency’s COVID-19 response plan. The health and safety of our population and employees remain our top priority.”
Chief among the concerns cited by the ACLU is the lack of mask-wearing by prison staff. Those complaints span across correctional facilities, housing units and across work shifts. Some reports state that anywhere from onetenth to half of staff do not wear masks on a regular basis.
“The No. 1 consistent thing we heard from literally everybody I’ve spoken to or emailed is the issue with staff not wearing masks consistently,” Bildner said.
Besides releasing people from custody, Bildner added, masks are the most critical factor in stopping the transmission of the virus in correctional facilities.
The incarcerated population and corrections staff have been notified of the mask mandates through DOC notices and memos.
In an interview with the Mirror in September, newly designated commissioner Angel Quiros responded to widespread reports that corrections officers were not wearing masks.
“If a staff member is able to maintain the six feet of social distancing — there’s no inmates, no staff members around that individual — they don’t have to wear the mask,” Quiros said of the governor’s executive order. “But the minute that they cannot maintain that social distancing to six feet, they are wearing the mask, just like we are out in society.”
Quiros said when he visited correctional facilities, he mostly saw incarcerated people and DOC staff complying with the mask mandate. If prison staff violate the order, officials will impose progressive discipline, first showing them the executive order, then eventually writing them up if they still violate the order.
“It has not gotten to a discipline level where there’s been any written reprimand or any suspension based on a staff member refusing to wear a mask,” Quiros said on Sept. 22.
The settlement requires the DOC provide two masks each week to inmates, but those inside Hartford Correctional have told the ACLU they’ve been wearing the same masks since August. Some at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield have said they’ve received only four masks since March. Others have been denied masks when they’ve requested them, according to the ACLU.
“Mask distribution appears to vary enormously by facility,” the letter states. “We consistently are hearing reports that people are not receiving new masks for weeks at a time, especially upon transfer.”
Another of the ACLU’s complaints involve the department’s quarantining of the sick. The agreement has specific provisions regarding the quarantining of inmates who have the virus. The ACLU says they’ve heard reports of people placed in “suspected COVID” quarantine areas with people who have already tested positive, potentially exposing healthy people to a deadly virus. They have also heard that asymptomatic inmates are being placed in units containing COVID-like symptoms, particularly in the jails in Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport — notable because those facilities have the highest turnover of the state’s correctional facilities. Inmates there are often recent arrestees who haven’t been convicted and are awaiting a court date.
The ACLU also said it has received reports that people at Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center in Montville with suspected COVID-19 symptoms are being held in “punitive isolation,” locked in their cells for long periods without any ability to leave.