Face the Facts: How lawmakers plan to tackle correction officer assaults

How do lawmakers plan to tackle the recent attacks on correction officers?

NBC Connecticut's Mike Hydeck spoke with Rep. Greg Howard, the ranking Republican in the House on the Public Safety Committee. He is also a career police officer and currently a detective in the Stonington Police Department.

Mike Hydeck: So staffing in our corrections facilities has been an issue for a few years now. Trying to solve this, are you part of the task force? Or have you heard of the task force to fix it?

Greg Howard: No, the governor's comments were the first that I've heard of it. I'm not on it. I'm not sure who is or what exactly they're looking at.

Mike Hydeck: So in recent years, and I'm sure you know, there are rules on how much time, we just spoke about it, that inmates spend outside of their cell has changed. Is that something you think will be revisited by this task force or the legislature in the next session?

Greg Howard: I sure hope it is. You know, they ran a bill in 2021. That if you remember, I believe, the governor vetoed. A different bill and a different variation came out in 2022 that the commissioner supported. And since then, I've heard from several corrections officers who live in my district and have reached out from other parts of the state that the out-of-cell time is creating significant problems for a variety of reasons. I think it's important for everybody to understand that many people who are in our prison system are there for, and they really have nothing to lose. So in order for our COs to be able to maintain control for not only their safety of themselves but for the safety of the other inmates, it's important that they have procedures in place where they can hold people accountable who don't follow rules within the prison. That's what they used solitary confinement for in the past or restricted housing. And we've really hamstrung that, their ability to do that. And I think another important thing is, you know, when you talk about what they call SRGs, or Security Risk Groups, these are gang members or people who pose a risk to staff and other inmates. And even those individuals have, you know, out-of-cell time, well beyond what the correction officers can handle. And that's why we have these incidents.

Mike Hydeck: So considering, if there aren't enough correction officers to handle them, or maybe there are other issues that you can explain. We had Willard Correctional close in April. Radgowski Correctional, Northern Correctional, they all closed recently. It seems there would be guards from all of those facilities that can move into the remaining facilities that are open. Is that not the case?

Greg Howard: Well, it doesn't seem to be the case. And I think it's, you know, certainly, we have a teacher shortage you talked about earlier. We have shortages in law enforcement across the state and corrections officers are no different. We have shortages there. But you have to remember when you close these facilities, sure you can move staff down, but you're also moving inmates down as well. So you're increasing the population at the other facility. So the size of the facility is one thing, but the amount of inmates there and the number of COs that it takes to manage those inmates will change, you know, equally. So, you know, that's an important aspect of it that I think we need to be aware of as well.

Mike Hydeck: Being in prison is supposed to be a rehabilitative process. It isn't always characterized that way. Should mental health be a part of this equation, too, moving forward? So maybe these attacks don't happen as often, from that perspective?

Greg Howard: You know, yes, the straight answer to your question is yes. The amount of mental health issues that we have in our prison system is a major, major problem. We continue to work at that. I just recently with one of my colleagues in Hartford, we started an initiative to get some more crisis intervention training into the facilites. So right now, in our state, we've done a great job over the last several years to get police officers trained in crisis intervention. That is dealing with folks with emotional, that we call EDPs, Emotionally Disturbed Persons or individuals with mental illness. And we're trying to get that same CIT training into the prison facilities so that we have officers trained there. We have a major mental health issue, and that's a big part of it. But we also have to be realistic and say, while many of the inmates in our facility have mental health issues that need to, the underlying problem needs to be addressed. And certainly you are correct, our prison system and our judicial system as a whole, not just the prison system, is designed to be rehabilitative. However, there are people that are not going to rehabilitate. And we have individuals in the prison system, you know, we had two corrections officers recently attacked and stabbed. That same inmate less than a year ago, put another corrections officer out of work due to an assault. So we have to be realistic as a legislature and as a state. When we talk about corrections officers and we hamstring their ability to keep their their facility safe. Yes, we don't want to increase mental health problems and we want to address those underlying issues. But when individuals pose a serious threat to other inmates and COs, it's not the legislature's job to go and tell the commissioner or the DOC on a micromanaged basis, how they're going to do everything minute to minute when almost exclusively the legislators in the state of clinic have never served inside of a prison system as a CO.

Mike Hydeck: So it is incumbent upon you and your fellow legislators to try to impart that on the rest of the body in Hartford. How do you do that? Should you bring a bill forward that can change the way things go? Like what happens to try to change that, in your opinion?

Greg Howard: Well, we can try, you know, and I do have to express a little bit of frustration when when you have the commissioner come forward, and, you know, support the last iteration of this bill that passed in 2022. And then you see the ramifications of it. And it's important to know that the commissioner himself came through the ranks. He was a he was a CO and came all the way through. I have tremendous respect for him. The reality in Hartford, Mike, that needs to be understood, and Connecticut police chiefs face the same issue, you have a legislature that is will come to policing or come in this case to corrections with an awful bill. And individuals, and I'm not speaking for the commissioner, but I've watched this happen over time, where you have groups like the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, and certain commissioners, etc. realize they're getting a bad bill. And they'll try to make that bill as good as it can be, even though it's still bad and end up supporting it. And that's a sad state of our politics, that the Connecticut legislature has come so far in their soft on crime, anti-law enforcement narrative with the majority party, that you now have police chiefs groups, or perhaps commissioners, who are willing to put their name on something they don't agree with just to make sure it wasn't worse, because that's their greatest fear. And I think we got to start taking a look at that. And we have to have honest conversations, but we try to come up with a solution. And like there's one solution for everyone. It's not the case. Corrections officers, law enforcement, probation, teachers, you name it, every individual they deal with is a different set of circumstances. And we cannot come up with policies that are cookbook that make it, for this person, for everybody, You have to do this. It may be applicable to one person but somebody else has a different plan. And we need to be as a legislature, we can't be ignorant to that.