connecticut prisons

Making decisions on how to manage and fund state prisons involves balancing how tax dollars are spent, social concerns, public safety – not to mention all the politics when parties disagree on a possible solution. NBC Connecticut’s Mike Hydeck spoke with Mike Lawlor, a Democratic state legislator who’s familiar with all sides of the issue. Lawlor’s been a state...

Getting information on what goes on inside of Connecticut’s prisons is not easy. It often comes from families of those in prison calling reporters or the inmates themselves writing letters. NBC Connecticut’s Mike Hydeck talks to Kelan Lyons, a justice reporter from the CT Mirror who has been covering the state’s prisons extensively. He is discussing a recent public...

We’re taking an in-depth look at our state’s prison system and how a new bill could change solitary confinement policies. Solitary confinement policies are one contributing factor to the mental health challenges of the incarcerated population, according to Barbara Fair, who is a member of Stop Solitary CT. Stop Solitary CT is a group that is centered around stopping...

Connecticut Department of Correction officials said an inmate has died because of Covid-19 after receiving treatment in the hospital for nearly a month. Correction officials said the 43-year-old man had underlying health issues and refused intubation in the hospital last week. He died on Friday. DOC officials said the man entered the prison system in October of last year and…

A convicted murderer in Connecticut who says he is studying to become a Roman Catholic priest has lost his legal fight against state prison officials he accused of violating his constitutional rights by blocking his orders of used religious books and other materials. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Jan Gawlik’s appeal of a Connecticut Appellate...

A Connecticut inmate has become the fifth state prisoner this month to die of COVID-19 complications, according to the Department of Correction. The inmate, who was not identified because of medical privacy laws, died Friday afternoon at a hospital where he was transferred about three weeks ago, the department said. The 57-year-old man was serving a 40-year sentence for arson…

Federal lawmakers from Connecticut demanded answers Friday from the warden of the federal prison in Danbury after they say they learned first responders were denied access during one of two natural gas leaks within the past two months. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and Rep. Jahana Hayes said they sent a letter to Warden Diane Easter asking questions and…

Later this week, the state is expected to release guidelines for the next round of COVID vaccines. The CDC said postal workers, grocery store employees, and bus drivers should be on that list, along with teachers. In Connecticut, there’s also a push to prioritize prisoners. “The people in prisons are human, too,” said Marquita Nelson of Meriden. Right now,...

Advocates, including the ACLU, are pushing the state to include prison inmates among the first groups to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Connecticut Department of Correction announced that another prison inmate has died of COVID-19. A 69-year-old man was transferred from the Agency’s MacDougall-Walker Medical Isolation Unit to an outside hospital for treatment on Nov. 26 where he later died, officials said. The man entered the correctional system in May of 2000 and was serving a 60-year sentence, suspended after 40…

Connecticut officials are paying $250,000 and admitting no wrongdoing in a settlement of a lawsuit brought by a state prison inmate who gave birth on a toilet in her cell and claimed she was denied medical care, according to details of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press on Saturday. Attorney General William Tong’s office provided the AP with a…

Inmate Michael Liebowitz reached out after our NBC CT Investigates stories on how the Connecticut Department of Correction has handled the coronavirus outbreak