DOC acts in wake of York sexual assault allegations

Changes at Niantic women’s prison include more security cameras

When a female inmate at the Janet S. York Correctional Institution came forward last year and said she had sexual contact with three correction officers, the state Department of Correction took immediate action to prevent future incidents, according to spokeswoman Karen Martucci.

“It should be known the agency will not tolerate this type of behavior,” Martucci, acting director of external affairs for the Department of Correction, said in an email.

Some of the reforms include installation of additional security cameras, internal and external audits to ensure the prison is complying with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act and development of a new gender-specific training program for staff, according to Martucci.

York, which is the state’s only women’s prison, had the most reported sexual assaults of any of Connecticut’s 15 prisons in 2013 and 2014, though only two complaints were substantiated in 2013 and six in 2014, according to an agency publication. The agency is creating a new training program for staff titled “Offender Supervision: Unique Needs of Female Offenders,” Martucci said.

Correction officers Jeffrey Bromley, 47, Matthew Gillette, 44, and Kareem Dawson, 34 are charged with having sexual contact with a woman while she was housed in the Davis Building.

The housing unit on the low-security side of the Niantic women’s prison is decades older than the high-security portion of the complex that was built in 1994 and was not equipped with video surveillance cameras. The Davis Building houses inmates who have been accepted into an intensive substance abuse rehabilitation program.

The DOC has fired Bromley and Gillette, who were arrested earlier this year. Dawson, who was charged June 30, is on administrative leave. All three are accused of second-degree sexual assault, a felony, under a section of state law that pertains to a person in custody where the accused has “supervisory or disciplinary authority over such other person.” They all are free on bond while their cases are pending in New London Superior Court.

The Department of Correction says it has embraced the standards

set forth by the U.S. Department of Justice under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. The act sets forth prevention measures, including prohibiting nonmedical staff of the opposite gender from viewing inmates while showering, using the toilet and changing their clothes.

The alleged victim, who has since been released from prison, told investigators that she had sexual contact with the correction officers in the Davis building’s laundry room and the basement, which is off-limits to inmates.

She said she was taking a shower in a single- person bathroom on the first floor when Dawson walked in, approached her and initiated a sexual act.

The woman told investigators she believed the sex acts were consensual when they began but would think to herself that if she no longer continued them, there might have been repercussions, according to court documents.

The DOC has created a PREA investigation unit that reviews sexual assault complaints and refers them to the state police for additional investigation and prosecution, according to the agency’s website.

Court documents indicate that in the case at York, DOC Capt. Alex Smith contacted state police at Troop E in Montville after interviewing the alleged victim “during an investigation of a correctional officer that was reported to have been conducting himself in an unprofessional and inappropriate manner.”

The new training program for staff, which is scheduled to launch this fall at the DOC’s Maloney Center for Training and Staff Development, will include instruction on how to work with female offenders and provide insight into women’s pathways to incarceration, which are often different than men’s, and the impact of trauma on their behavior, according to the DOC.

Becki Ney, a principal with the National Resource Center on Justice- Involve Women, said women come into prison differently than men, many of them with histories of trauma and sexual violence.

“A lot of what we see in women’s prisons are attempts to establish relationships, which can make them more vulnerable with staff, other inmates and with lots of people,” Ney said during a phone interview Friday.

Women with a history of bad relationships may not understand what good relationships look like and may have been “normalized” to providing sex in exchange for favors, she said.

In her experience, Connecticut’s DOC has been working on its gender-specific policies for some time, Ney said.

“They’re not a systemthat’s on my list as being uninterested in and ignoring women,” Ney said. “They’re on the list of wanting to do good things.”