Prison In Lockdown After Reported Assault On Officer

By HILDA MUÑOZ

The Hartford Courant
 
SOMERS - Northern Correctional Institution will be in lockdown until Wednesday morning after authorities said an inmate assaulted a correction officer with a makeshift knife this afternoon.

The inmate is not being identified.

The officer was taken to an area hospital with a wound to his neck, said Department of Correction spokesman Brian Garnett. He received stitches and was released.
State police are investigating the incident.
Garnett said the inmate was being taken out of his cell for a shower late this afternoon when he slashed the officer in the neck.

The inmate has a history of assaulting correctional staff and other inmates, said Kevin Brace, chairman of the Correctional Staff Health and Safety Subcommittee of the Criminal Justice Policy Advisory Commission.
"These types of attacks are horrendous and this is something that our subcommittee is going to look at," he said.
The subcommittee seeks to improve correctional staff safety, he said.

Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant

Vote for Luke Leone & Brett Owen in the Local 1565 Election

As the author of this blog I am endorsing Luke Leone and Brett Owen.  I have had the honor and the privilege of working with Brett Owen and Luke Leone on Corrections issues at the Legislative Office Building. We served together on the Correctional Staff Health and Safety Task Force, and currently serve together on the Correctional Staff Health and Safety Sub-Committee. They are two of the most honest, hard working, and passionate people when it comes to the issues that face Correctional Staff. I am in Local 391, but I would be proud to have Brett and Luke representing me. Their integrity is unmatched, and they are incorruptible. They are unwavering in their quest for safer prisons and Staff Safety.

Vote for Luke and Brett for President and Vice President of Local 1565.

I am happy to report that Luke and Brett won, in a landslide!

Correctional Staff Health and Safety Committee

On December 2nd, I was elected by the Sub-Committee to serve as our Chairperson. On December 10th I gave a report to the Criminal Justice Policy Advisory Commission on the progress of our Sub-Committee meeting. I appear at the very end.

http://ct-n.com/ondemand.asp?ID=4979

Inmate pleads guilty in fatal beating of fellow prisoner

By Max Bakke

Journal Inquirer

HARTFORD — An inmate plead guilty Wednesday to first-degree manslaughter and will spend an additional 10 years in prison for the fatal beating of a fellow inmate at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield in May 2008.
The inmate, Waldemar Rivera, 30, rejected the same plea deal two days prior in the death of Kevin Cales, 34.
Rivera, who is in his third of a seven and a half year prison sentence for armed robbery, faced up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the crime at trial, Judge David P. Gold told him this week.
His trial was scheduled to start Wednesday with jury selection.

Cales was convicted in January 2008 in New Britain Superior Court of five counts of first-degree manslaughter in connection with a fatal 2006 car chase in which five people were killed, including Maryneliz Jimenez, Cales’ former girlfriend and his child’s mother.
Rivera’s mother told police that he was related to Jimenez through marriage, rather than by blood, but considered her his cousin.
Inmates and correctional officers told state police that Rivera approached Cales in the food line at MacDougall-Walker the day of the assault, and hit him in the head. Then, as Cales lay motionless on the prison floor, Rivera repeatedly kicked and stomped Cales.

Witnesses said the attack lasted mere seconds and that Rivera surrendered to correctional officers without a struggle.
Cales was in a coma after the attack and died of his injuries that night at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford.

After the beating, Rivera was transferred to Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, where he remains, according to Correction Department records. He will be formally sentenced Feb. 25.
A phone call Wednesday to the public defender representing Rivera was not returned.

Union claims decision already made on prison

By Luther Turmelle, North Bureau Chief
New Haven Register

CHESHIRE — Leaders of the union representing corrections officers at the Webster Correctional Institution said Tuesday that a decision has already been made to close the facility, despite claims to the contrary by state officials.

Moises Padilla, vice president of Local 387 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, said human resources officials with the state Department of Correction will be meeting today with union members who work at the Jarvis Street facility. The purpose of the visit, he said, is to begin providing details of how the process of closing the facility would play out.
Brian Garnett, a DOC spokesman, was not available for comment Tuesday concerning Padilla’s claim that the decision to close the facility has already been made. Rich Harris, a spokesman for Gov. M. Jodi Rell, said he had “not heard anything about a decision.”
Rell ordered the DOC last month to investigate the feasibility of closing correctional facilities because of a 1,600-inmate decline in the prison population statewide. The closing of Webster Correctional Institution is projected to save the state $3.4 million annually.
Padilla said the union is opposed to the closing of the facility because it will have a ripple effect at other DOC facilities that will put corrections officers at risk. DOC officials said last week, when they announced that the agency had recommended closing the facility, that the 220 inmates there would be moved to other minimum-security prisons in the state as well as other higher-security facilities if necessary.
“It’s a shell game,” Padilla said. “The Level 2 facilities are already over-crowded, so they (inmates currently at Webster) won’t necessarily end up there.”
Padilla said those prisons that are overcrowded use space that is not designed to house inmates, like offices and closets.
“They can’t have inmates sleep on the floor, so they put mattresses on what corrections officers call ‘banana boats’ — temporary plastic cots that have no legs or frames,” he said. “Conditions like that are ultimately going to put corrections officers’ safety at risk.”
There are about 120 staff members at Webster Correctional Institution, although not all of them are corrections officers. It is expected to take eight to 10 weeks to close the Jarvis Street facility, which opened in 1990.

Rell ordered acting corrections Commissioner Brian Murphy to review the feasibility of consolidating some facilities as a response to the state’s burgeoning deficit.
The state prison population is about 18,300, down from nearly 19,900 in February 2008. The DOC has closed two of the four housing units at Webster over the past year.

Budget woes prompt early release of prisoners

Associated Press

December 4, 2009

HARTFORD, Conn. - Connecticut officials have reinstated an early release program for prison inmates that was curtailed after two parolees were charged with killing a woman and her two daughters in Cheshire in 2007.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell and state lawmakers agreed to lift the restrictions in an effort to reduce the prison population and save about $4 million a year.
Prison officials began releasing inmates on supervised re-entry furloughs Nov. 9. Some prisoners can be released 45 days before their sentences end, under the program. Officials say about 800 of the state's 18,300 prisoners are eligible for re-entry furloughs, and 15 have been approved for release so far.

But some local police officials say they're concerned about a potential threat to public safety.

Rell to close Cheshire prison; lawmakers wary of inmate transfers

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Journal Inquirer
Published: Wednesday, December 2, 2009 9:24 AM EST

Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced Tuesday she plans to close a Cheshire prison and reassign roughly 220 inmates to other facilities in hopes of saving about $3.4 million per year.
It was unclear late Tuesday whether that could increase inmate populations at north-central Connecticut prisons. But three local facilities do have security ratings similar to the Webster Correctional Institution in Cheshire — a key factor Department of Correction officials use in ordering inmate reassignments.

The projected savings for the closure, which doesn’t require legislative approval, surprised some lawmakers, who have asked the administration to cut prison costs by more than $60 million this fiscal year. But Rell said her plan, though expected to curb overtime, doesn’t call for layoffs for correction officers or other prison staff.
“We face an extraordinarily difficult budget situation — a challenge unlike any we have known in modern memory,” Rell said, adding that the state’s inmate population of 18,300 is well down from the peak of 19,900 reached in February 2008. “While other states — including states facing even more severe budget problems than our own — are being forced to build new prisons, we can make the most of our successes by building on these achievements.”

State Comptroller Nancy Wyman reported Tuesday that this fiscal year’s $18.64 billion budget is running $549 million in the red. And that’s despite the recent cancellation of a planned Jan. 1 reduction in the sales tax from 6 percent to 5.5 percent.

Rell said Tuesday she believes the closing of Webster, a relatively low-security-level facility, will save money while maintaining the safety and security of the public, staff, and inmates.

“Any decision such as this must always be made with public safety foremost in our minds,” the governor said. “The recommendation from DOC notes that closing a minimum-security facility is easier to accomplish because any inmates that need to be moved can be shifted to higher-security locations if necessary. The closure can also be accomplished without laying off any of the dedicated DOC staff, who perform one of the most dangerous, yet most necessary, tasks in state government.”

But Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which represents more than 5,000 officers and other correction staff, criticized the administration’s decision.

“Governor Rell’s decision to close a state prison in a system that is already overcrowded with inmates and understaffed with front-line workers does not make sense,” the union wrote. “We believe Connecticut’s prison system was set up to handle 15,000 inmates but currently houses more than 18,000 inmates. Overcrowding is dangerous. It leads to higher incidents of assault on correctional staff and between inmates.”

Webster, which opened in 1990, was designed to house about 350 inmates. It now holds about 220.

Correction Department spokesman Brian Garnett said the agency doesn’t discuss specifics about inmate transfers.
But Garnett said the department policy is to move inmates, when transferred, to facilities with similar security ratings. Prisons have security ratings ranging from 1 to 5: 1 handling the least violent inmates and 5 tackling the worst in the most secured setting.

The state has six prisons with ratings similar to those at Webster, including three off Shaker Road in Enfield. Those are the Carl Robinson, Willard-Cybulski, and Enfield correctional institutions.

Rep. Karen Jarmoc, D-Enfield, said she intends to press the Rell administration for specifics about the plan, particularly what it could mean for facilities in her district. “This type of announcement warrants greater clarity from the governor,” she said.
Jarmoc and other members of Enfield’s delegation to the General Assembly objected in late 2007 after learning the department had converted program space at Carl Robinson into sleeping areas to ease overcrowding at the prison.

Sen. John A. Kissel of Enfield, the ranking Republican senator on the Judiciary Committee, said the Webster facility “definitely plays a crucial role in helping to reintegrate inmates into society.” Kissel added that he wants to be assured that substance abuse recovery, job training, college preparation, and other support programs offered there remain in place, even if offered elsewhere.

Rell’s plan calls for portions of Webster to continue to be operated as part of the adjoining Cheshire Correctional Institution to house the inmate workers needed for the complex. All inmate reintegration programs are expected to be retained.
Rell and acting Correction Department Commissioner Brian K. Murphy both said that any prison closure would be reversed should the need arise. Completing the closure of would take eight to 10 weeks, Murphy said.