DOC Commissioner Describes Need For More Prison Beds

By Andrew Gorosko

CHESHIRE — State Department of Correction (DOC) Commissioner John Armstrong has told members of prison advisory committees from around the state that the DOC needs to create additional inmate cells at state prisons to effectively manage a growing prisoner population.

The DOC wants to convert a state armory, which is adjacent to the New Haven Community Correctional Center, into a high-security prison, Mr Armstrong said March 17 at a DOC session in Cheshire. The armory has become obsolete for military purposes, he said.

It remains unclear whether the DOC would expand Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown as part of its plan to create additional beds in the state prison system, according to Mr Armstrong.

Mr Armstrong said DOC officials should know in several months whether it would be necessary to expand Garner. The DOC has a prison expansion bill pending before the state legislature.

State Representative Julia Wasserman, who attended the March 17 session, said March 20 she believes the DOC will not need to add prison cells at Garner in the proposed round of prison space expansion.

“My opinion is we’re okay for now,” she said. “Are we going to be okay five or ten years from now? I don’t know that. Nobody knows that,” she said, adding that what happens in the future results from changing circumstances.

The DOC’s “immediate first needs” for additional prison cells should be met by converting the New Haven armory for use as a prison, Mrs Wasserman said.

At the March 17 session, Mr Armstrong stressed that the DOC is not interested in creating completely new prisons, but rather in expanding existing facilities, noting that it is simpler that way.

“We are projecting progressive increments of escalation,” he said of the increasing inmate population.

In January 1995, the DOC held 15,754 inmates, while in January 2000 it held, 19,071 inmates, Mr Armstrong said.

Crowding Pressures

Although the Connecticut crime rate is lower than the national crime rate, several factors have combined to create crowding pressures in state prisons.

During the past decade, the percentage of sentences served by inmates has increased, Mr Armstrong said. The sentences which prisoners now serve well exceed minimum requirements, he added.

The DOC has minimized opportunities for inmates’ early releases, he noted. Also, the length of sentences served by 14- and 15-year-old convicts of serious crimes has increased, he said.

To deal with crowding pressures, the DOC has added 3,070 prison beds since 1995, representing a 21 percent increase, according to Mr Armstrong.

 Most inmate control problems occur in prison dormitory areas, so the DOC proposes creating cells, which are more secure than dormitories, in its expansion, Mr Armstrong said. The DOC wants to install prefabricated steel cells, which could rapidly increase inmate capacity, he said.

The DOC will take stock of existing prisons to learn where it is feasible to expand its facilities, he said.

The DOC wants to create 1,700 additional inmate beds in Connecticut to carry its inmate population through the next several years, he said. Those 1,700 beds would house sentenced high-security inmates, and also unsentenced inmates who are awaiting trials.

While the percentage of sentences served by prison inmates has increased, the number of offenders supervised in the community has been reduced, resulting in significant growth in inmate population, a trend that is expected to continue over the next several years, according to Mr Armstrong.

Mr Armstrong pointed out that the DOC has transferred almost 500 of its high-security inmates to a Virginia prison on a contract basis because Connecticut has insufficient high-security prison capacity.

Some state legislators are opposed to sending DOC inmates to prisons out of state on a contract basis to alleviate overcrowding in Connecticut. Inmates’ relatives have complained that such transfers make it difficult to visit the prisoners.

Since October, the DOC has transferred 480 inmates to Wallen’s Ridge State Correctional Facility in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Of the 480 inmates transferred there, 119 prisoners were from Garner. The Virginia prison has reached its inmate capacity.

Town officials and state legislators representing the town have said they plan to stay informed of the DOC’s plans to create additional prison space, with the goal of preventing the DOC from building that prison space in Newtown.

In a recent letter to Mr Armstrong, First Selectman Herbert  Rosenthal wrote, “Any attempt to build a second facility or a major expansion of the existing Garner facility will be strongly opposed by the Town of Newtown, and any political might that we can assemble will be used.”

Garner Correctional Institution, the DOC’s high-security prison on Nunnawauk Road, was built to house more than 700 inmates.

Garner, which opened in November 1992, formerly served as the DOC’s prime facility for housing incarcerated gang members. That function has shifted to Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. Garner will now serve as the state’s prime prison for inmates with mental health problems, consolidating that function for the DOC in Newtown. Garner has housed many mental health inmates since the prison opened. Inmates who need more mental health treatment than can be provided at Garner will be sent to Whiting Forensic Institute in Middletown.