Department of Correction panel appointments alarm advocates

Republican lawmakers have appointed two people who have ties with Connecticut’s Department of Correction to a committee established to provide oversight of the agency — a decision that has sparked concerns among community organizers about the legitimacy and security of the panel.

Holding the power to choose one of the 11 Correction Advisory Committee appointees, Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, selected John Bowen, a recently retired correctional officer who serves on the board of a local union and has interacted with a social media account that pays homage to the Confederacy.

Meanwhile, Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, picked John Cipolli, a former correctional officer who was recently promoted to correctional counselor trainee. His brother was killed in 2021, and the person responsible for the slaying is incarcerated in a state prison.

Cipolli also publicly testified against the legislation that created the advisory committee.

Now Kissel and Fishbein’s DOC appointees will have access to sensitive information about the agency’s practices shared with the advisory committee’s other members, an outcome that some community organizers sought to avoid.

“They can’t police themselves, they just can’t,” said Barbara Fair, a founding member of Stop Solitary CT, a statewide campaign dedicated to humane treatment in correctional facilities. “No one’s going to trust bringing anything to the board.”

Advocates like Fair believed the committee would bring transparency to grievances or concerns from within correctional facilities, which was of paramount concern to advocates, given the history of the agency.

Most recently, a federal judge and jury said the DOC violated a Black man’s constitutional rights when they kept him locked in a cell “the size of a parking space” for 22 hours a day. The department faced backlash when a state audit revealed that dozens of correctional officers abused a federally-funded hotel program created to house workers affected by COVID-19. It was also criticized for its lack of transparency regarding the whereabouts and deaths of incarcerated people at the height of the pandemic.

The decision to appoint two representatives of the DOC — a department expected to police itself but frequently entangled in harmful practices exempt from public scrutiny — on the committee dampened any hopes for independent oversight. Bowen and Cipolli’s activity outside of their day jobs has only increased the advocates’ disappointment.

“They couldn’t handle having a board that’s completely independent of DOC, a board of people who actually have a history of supporting the well being of incarcerated people,” Fair said.

Daryl McGraw, a criminal justice advocate who will serve on the committee with Bowen and Cipolli, said the appointment of the two DOC representatives seems like an attempt to agitate the organizers who have long pushed for independent oversight.

“The optics would make it seem that they’re not serious about making change within that structure,” said McGraw, who was also cochair of the state’s Police Transparency and Accountability Task Force. He spent a decade in and out of Connecticut’s prison system and says — as someone who’s experienced solitary confinement — he knows how inhumanely people in the DOC’s custody can be treated.

“If you see these two individuals fight for the rights of inmates, if that’s in their resume, then I can see why they would be qualified,” McGraw said. “But these two people seem the furthest away from what we would need on the committee.”

The committee’s structure has also prompted action from longtime state Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, who recently filed a bill that would “make adjustments to the membership and procedures” of the group. It is unclear what Walker — the longtime co-chair of the Appropriations Committee and a champion of criminal justice reform — hopes to accomplish, as the bill does not yet contain any language specifying what it would do.

Walker did not respond to requests for comment.

Two new members

Senate Bill 459, also known as the PROTECT Act, passed through the 2022 General Assembly after heated battles between community organizers, DOC officials and legislators over how the state would limit the use of extreme isolation in prisons. An earlier version of the bill made it to Gov. Ned Lamont’s desk in 2021, but he vetoed it, claiming it would put the safety of people who live and work in prisons at risk.

Withstanding fierce opposition from correctional staff unions, Stop Solitary CT and the DOC agreed on a bill that would prohibit the agency from placing minors in isolation and cap the time any incarcerated person could spend in isolation at 15 consecutive days, or 30 total days, within any 60-day period.

The two groups also agreed to terms on the formation of the Correction Advisory Committee, a board of Connecticut residents with diverse expertise in the state’s criminal legal system, tasked with helping appoint a new ombudsperson.

The ombudsperson, a position previously eliminated to save money, would have the power to independently conduct site visits, communicate with incarcerated people, review agency records and draft a yearly report on confinement conditions. The advisory committee would meet at least quarterly to inform and advise the ombudsperson, who would work in the state’s Office of Governmental Accountability.

As mandated by the law, the committee appointees were announced in a public hearing. Committee members and advocates learned at that hearing, held in December, that Kissel and Fishbein had appointed Bowen and Cipolli.

Bowen spent 21 years as a correctional officer for the DOC. While working as an officer, he also rose in the ranks as a member of AFSCME Local 391, a correctional staff union, serving as vice president for more than five years.

He retired from the department in July and stepped down as the union’s vice president. Then he transitioned into a role with the union’s executive board, a position he expects to hold until May. As a board member, he continues to field calls from correctional staff who bring grievances to his attention and takes part in monthly meetings where union members discuss and vote on outstanding matters.

This was of notable concern to advocates, given that correctional staff unions opposed the PROTECT Act’s limitations on the use of extreme isolation — despite the federal court’s ruling that the DOC’s use of the practice was unconstitutional. Union representatives also publicly defended the dozens of employees who abused the federally funded hotel pandemic program.

Adding to the concerns about Bowen is the fact that at some point during his tenure with the agency, he or someone else using his Facebook account “liked” another account named “Love My Confederate Ancestors,” a page that routinely posts affectionate memes about the South’s effort during the Civil War to maintain slavery.

To the advocates, the beliefs indicated by Bowen’s Facebook activity could undermine the work of the advisory committee, which partly is to serve the best interests of people under DOC care. Forty-two percent of people incarcerated in Connecticut are Black — more than three times their percentage of the state population. Historians and scholars have consistently linked the disparities in today’s prison system to slavery.

The other appointee, Cipolli, was introduced at the public hearing as Fishbein’s choice. He has worked with the DOC since 2015, having spent most of his time as a correctional officer. While he was an officer, his family grieved the loss of his brother, Ernest, who was killed during an altercation outside of a Wallingford cafe in January 2021. The man convicted of his brother’s killing was recently sentenced to 16 years in state prison.

Cipolli was promoted to correctional counselor trainee in November — the DOC’s initial stepping stone to counselor — where, among other duties, he will spend a year counseling incarcerated people assigned to his caseload, referring people to available services and treatment programs, and touring housing units.

Also within the last year, Cipolli publicly testified against the PROTECT Act, telling legislators that it would undermine the work and expertise of correctional staff.

“Having decisions made about the operations of correctional facilities by officials who’ve never had to walk in our shoes and see the daily routine of a prison is irresponsible,” Cipolli said in a virtual hearing last March. “Rather than forcing new policy on the department, perhaps sitting down with individuals, such as officers, and collaborating would be a better alternative to find a happy medium.”

Advocates are concerned that Cipolli’s current affiliation with the DOC, the killing of his brother by a man who’s currently in department custody and his public testimony against the PROTECT Act is problematic for someone serving on the oversight committee.