By Chris Powell
With their residents locked in and the public locked out, Connecticut’s prisons are inevitably far more secretive than other agencies of government. Combine this secrecy with the disdain for prisoners and the decline of journalism and prisons become especially susceptible to malfeasance, misconduct, and abuse of power.
Criminal justice in Connecticut is lenient and goes out of its way with probation and suspended sentences to keep offenders out of prison. With most elected officials, reducing prison population and expense is far more important than putting chronic offenders away. As a result when criminals are sent to prison most are already pretty messed up and have been repeatedly destructive for a long time, making them still more dangerous and the prison environment still worse. Even the most decent prison guards are always at high risk of being assaulted by disturbed inmates.
But in recent years neglect of medical care for inmates in Connecticut’s prisons has been well documented, and the high rate of prisoner recidivism — the return of released prisoners to crime and imprisonment — suggests that while prison protects society, it still doesn’t do much to turn prisoners into productive members of society upon release. Indeed, with recidivism so high it’s crazy that so few repeat offenders are given life sentences.
So along with criminal justice generally, prisons in Connecticut need scrutiny, and thanks to recent legislation they will have to be much more accepting of it than they were when, 40 years ago, the Journal Inquirer recruited a literate inmate of Somers State Prison to write a regular column for the newspaper. Eventually the warden and correction commissioner grew so resentful of occasional criticism from inside their domain that they transferred the prisoner-columnist to the federal prison system, purportedly for his own safety but actually to silence him and end the publicity about Connecticut prison life.
For while writing for the newspaper the prisoner was never attacked or threatened by other prisoners. He was threatened only by the prison administration, as the administration threatened the newspaper itself with criminal prosecution for facilitating the prisoner’s writing. A prosecutor quickly determined that the threat against the newspaper had no basis in law and was just intimidation.
The new legislation establishes the office of an independent prison ombudsman, authorizing him to investigate prison conditions and complaints from prisoners and thus go where the press and public usually can’t. If the ombudsman is conscientious, he will report regularly to the commissioner, the governor, the General Assembly, the press, and the public, and maybe someone will hold the Correction Department to account.
A committee appointed to review candidates for prison ombudsman has recommended that Governor Lamont appoint Kenneth J. Krayeske, a civil rights lawyer based in New Haven who has dabbled on the far left of state politics and successfully litigated on behalf of prisoners. Krayeske promises to be reasonable — that is, he knows that only being reasonable is likely to make progress for prisoners. He will have to build trust, and given his clientele this may not be easy.
But if the ombudsman does his job right, he may do a service for the public as well as for prisoners. He might prompt people to wonder: Why shouldn’t Connecticut establish ombudsmen for all major state government agencies?
Of course Connecticut already has its two state auditors, who do excellent work even if some agencies don’t always take their findings as seriously as they should. But the auditors come around to the agencies only once in a while and concentrate on financial issues.
What if there were ombudsmen authorized to butt into all agency business every day — meetings, personnel decisions, records — and make regular public reports about whatever struck them as objectionable or questionable?
This might awaken the conscience in state government — that conscience being, as H.L. Mencken wrote, “the inner voice that warns us someone may be looking.”
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 