Prison System Tackles Covid Crisis

It’s not easy deciding when to keep inmates in prison amid a pandemic. Richard Sparaco has that challenge — and said he is trying to strike the right balance between protecting public and protecting personal safety.

Sparaco serves as the executive director of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles (BOPP). That means he’s responsible for the department that makes recommendations to the prison system on early release. In an interview, he said it’s not so easy to find the proper balance when weighing Covid-19 against the BOPP’s traditional risk factors. Additionally, statutory constraints hamper the board’s ability to release more prisoners, even if they have Covid, he said.

For example, in order to be eligible for compassionate or medical release, an inmate has to be above a certain age and have either a terminal or debilitating illness, a threshold that’s not reachable for the average inmate. For violent offenders, the truth in sentencing law requires they serve 85 percent of their time before being eligible for parole.

“Just because Covid-19 is a risk doesn’t mean you’re eligible for compassionate release or medical parole,” Sparaco said in an interview with the Independent. ​“Unless they were given the actual prognosis of death.”

Through the pandemic, prisons have been hotbeds for viral outbreaks. The state Department of Correction (DOC) reported that 1,624 inmates out of the 11,854 serving time in Connecticut facilities have been diagnosed with Covid-19. Correction officers (COs) are also contracting the virus; one inmate from Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown told the Independent that the precautions prisons are taking to stop the spread of COVID-19 have left his facility understaffed.

The precautions have also worsened prison conditions for inmates with back-to-back lockdowns and 24/7 isolation stints.

”Living In A Bathroom”

The DOC and BOPP’s response to Covid-19 has been criticized by prison rights activists and inmates.

Inmates argue that the board discriminates against violent offenders for parole, and that both departments aren’t doing enough to alleviate some of the new hardships the pandemic has pressed on the inmate population.

William Jones, an inmate in Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers who contracted Covid-19, said the DOC has been largely indifferent to the wellbeing of the incarcerated. He argued that the lockdowns and periods of isolation have inculcated low morale in his prison, leaving many depressed and without mental health resources.

“When you become a doctor, you enter your career wanting to help people,” Jones told the Independent. ​“But when you’re a correctional officer, your whole career is made up of torturing people inside prison. I’m forced to live in a bathroom when two people died in the past two weeks. It’s very scary. It’s like we’re forced to live a death sentence. They don’t give us nothing, no cleaning supplies, no new masks. They have us showering together, rats and spiders in the cells, and it’s always cold in here, like sleeping on a park bench.”

Jones said he hopes to bring a lawsuit against the DOC over the condition of the prison.

For inmates like Jones, a glimmer of hope came in June when the ACLU settled a lawsuit with the state to better protect inmates from Covid-19.
The settlement requires new procedures and safeguards for the DOC to put in place in order to reduce Covid-19 risks, including the regular distribution of soap, providing inmates with cleaning supplies and masks, and allowing daily showers.

According to the ACLU, there has been a ​“systemic pattern of non-compliance” with the settlement, which expired on Dec 31.

An Osborn inmate who was recently diagnosed with Covid-19 said the DOC hasn’t upheld it’s end of the bargain and kept moving new inmates into his cell, even when he complained that he was feeling sick.

“This facility keeps moving us around and putting positive with negative inmates in the same cell without separating us,” said the inmate, who requested anonymity.

Darien Rosario, another inmate at Osborn, said that the DOC still has inmates showering together, gathering closely for rec time and meals, and standing next to each other for phone calls. ​“They don’t test us frequently and still have us bunked up with a cell mate. Inmates still shower together sometimes two inmates per shower.”

DOC spokeswoman Karen Martucci disputed the above allegations.

She said that a monitoring panel established as part of the ACLU settlement found that the DOC is indeed giving out the masks.

Osborn has private stalls, but puts inmates in cohorts with others with similar status, according to Martucci. ​“If you’re positive you shower with positive people, and if you’re negative you shower with the negatives.”

“Osborn has two symptomatic positive inmates. No one negative is put in the same cell as someone positive. The minute you are positive and tested you are moved,” she stated. ​“We are doing more testing than any other state correctional system that I’ve engaged with. We test the entire inmate population every other week, on top of that they’re tested at various touch points, when they come into the system, at the beginning and end of quarantine, before they transfer facilities, before they’re released, before any community medical appointment, and if they’re identified through any contact tracing.”

“We use both rapid and PCR testing. PCR is the majority. When we use rapid, we use it on days 1, 4 and 7, we have protocols set up that have been cleared with the Department of Public Health. But the majority of mass testing is done with PCR. One rapid protocol: Let’s say there’s 100 inmates in a housing unit. If they’re positive, we want to find out as quickly as possible in housing, so we’ll use rapid. It’s a quick identifier to minimize spread. The quicker we know there’s someone positive and closely monitored and cared for, we minimize the spread.”

Law enforcement officials, meanwhile, attribute at least some of the spike in violent crime throughout the state to Covid-related prison releases.

Adding New Criteria

As the pandemic spreads, the DOC and the parole board are challenged with evaluating inmates’ eligibility for release, with Covid-19 as a new factor to consider.

The factors that the board considers remain the same, Sparaco said. The board focuses on evaluating an inmate’s antisocial cognition, relationship to his/her peers, severity of the crime, antisocial history, personality patterns, criminal history, institutional behavior, and victim opposition. ​“We assess risk and risk for release,” said Sparaco.

In light of the pandemic, the board is emphasizing non-risk-related factors to be weighed along with other factors of the board’s current criterion.

“We added a non-risk related factor which includes age and health factors as part of the discretionary process,” Sparaco said. ​“It’s always been a factor, but the chair is emphasizing it. Age was always a factor, health not so much; you can be a high risk if you have diabetes or don’t. It’s being factored in more now than it was before. Our overall grant rates have dramatically increased through the past few months because of these other factors we’re putting in play.”

Another change the BOPP has made to accommodate Covid-19 concerns is allowing for speedier release of non-violent offenders. For an inmate seeking parole, the board will now render its decision on the same day of the hearing.

Officers prepare review summaries for the board a week in advance of the hearing. Officers don’t make recommendations; they just lay out everything for the board including a summary of risk. After the board conducts a risk assessment, it will determine if the inmate is a high or low risk based on the factors mentioned before.

“We hear individuals six months in advance of their eligibility date. The chair has statutory authority to release somebody 18 months in advance of their parole date. As soon as board hears parole, they can release them. Any non-violent offender granted parole would be released earlier instead of waiting the entire time,” Sparaco said.

For inmates seeking parole, the grant rate has increased sharply from previous years. In 2019 the overall grant rate was 50 percent. In 2020 the rate increased to about 61 percent overall, with some months hitting upwards of 70 percent.

One final change the BOPP has made is moving hearings online. Parole hearings are now livestreamed on the BOPP website

DOC’s Process

For prisoners seeking release, the BOPP isn’t their only avenue out. The DOC authorizes its own releases, which are conducted separately from the BOPP’s. Like the BOPP, the commissioner of correction has statutory authority to release offenders into the community.

A commonly utilized release mechanism is releasing inmates to halfway houses. Inmates are reviewed 18 months in advance of their release date, and have to either have served 50 percent of their time as non-violent offenders or 85 percent of their time if they’re violent offenders. Inmates serving two years or less can be released on transitional supervision, where they are sent to a residence with a sponsor.

DOC releases are evaluated and approved by a Community Release Unit (CRU). The unit takes a multi-factor approach in evaluating risks, victim statements, and rehabilitative programs completed in prison.

When inmates are first assigned to a prison, they are given an offender accountability plan (OAP), which recommends various programs the DOC thinks would be helpful. Ultimately, the director of the CRU makes the final decision in releasing inmates.

DOC spokeswoman Martucci said OAP-recommended programs are being conducted on a smaller, more intimate scale to prevent spread of the virus.

“What we started to do is to have to do smaller groups of programming with the same folks you live with in your housing unit. We’ve done correspondence, we pass paperwork under your door. We’re working with some community colleges to come up with some virtual engagement. Lack of availability with technology is an issue,” said Martucci. In terms of evaluating eligibility for release, the DOC faces similar statutory constraints that make it difficult to release more people solely on evaluating factors that relate to Covid-19. But the DOC is emphasizing Covid-19 concerns as factors to evaluate. Each inmate has a medical score from 1 to 5; the DOC is prioritizing people over the age of 50.

Changes are being made inside prisons as well. The DOC has authorized lockdowns and canceled in-person visitation. It has relocated inmates in response to positive cases.

“When Covid hit, we created a phased approach much like the community did,” Martucci said, ​“We slowed down movement and implemented a three-phase operational plan. Plans are in response to positivity rates. If there are 500 inmates, four positives, we’ll move them into medical isolation.”

In medical isolation, inmates stay at a facility in another housing unit with other asymptomatic people. Medical staff check their heart rate and keep tabs on them on every shift to make sure they’re staying asymptomatic. After 14 days inmates go back into the general population.

If an inmate is sick with Covid and a 102 degree fever, they’re moved to medical isolation in MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffolk with treatment units and medical staff checking them regularly.

Originally inmates with symptomatic cases of Covid were sent to Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. DOC policy changed after inmates were caught lying about their symptoms, because Northern, a maximum security prison, has a reputation of being especially punitive, said Martucci. As far as outbreaks go, the DOC decides how to handle them on a case-by-case basis.

Lockdowns

Every prison is different. If an outbreak is severe enough, the DOC will lock down a prison and bring in industrial foggers to sanitize the building.

Lockdowns involve no recreation time, no work, and no phone calls.

Martucci didn’t give an exact number of how long the average lockdown lasts, or how long the longest lockdowns have extended. But she said that the goal is always to get to as normal operation as possible.

An inmate at Garner Correctional Institution, requesting anonymity, told the Independent that the lockdowns have been largely protracted, and are taking a toll on inmate morale.

In the months of April and May, the DOC boasted the highest total release numbers in recent years. But since then, the numbers dropped dramatically to historic lows.

Total discretionary releases dropped to 232 in September, with total releases dropping to 639.

Martucci said that the DOC anticipated these low numbers. She attributed them to the shrinking pool of inmates to choose from for releases. There is a static number of inmates who are eligible for parole and DOC releases.

As the DOC and parole board continue to release inmates, and as new admissions decrease, the DOC is left primarily with inmates who are either not eligible for release or who are serving time for cases the DOC considers too egregious for release.

The top five offending charges for inmates right now are: Murder; violation of probation; first-degree robbery; first-degree assault; first-degree sexual assault. All of these are class B felonies.

“Our count has plummeted,” said Martucci, ​“With that reduction, the sentence population has shrunk significantly. Since our pool is lower, our releases are lower.”

Martucci pointed to other states that released inmates based on a less calculated strategy and the problems they’re facing because of it.

“When you let out thousands of people at once they don’t have homes, they don’t have any plans. We have a robust process here including a relief review. Just releasing someone, you probably increase the likelihood of them coming back. Some states release people and they have nowhere to go. It’s a very complicated process but I think it needs to be done right for everybody.”

Taubes: Changes Needed

Alex Taubes, a New Haven based civil rights and personal injury attorney who works on Covid release cases and helped with the ACLU lawsuit, said that more can be done for inmates in state prisons.

“What is the DOC’s position?” he asked. ​“That every single person in prison is a liar?”

Taubes was referring to the multitude of complaints submitted by inmates across the state. Though Taubes was hopeful about the ACLU lawsuit, he said it falls short by failing to require prisons to expedite releases.

Taubes said he hopes the outcome of the ACLU settlement will mirror a similar settlement in a case filed in federal court. In that lawsuit a district judge ordered a Danbury prison to follow new directives from the attorney general that required prisons to release inmates more quickly. But inmates in state prison are overshadowed by a different legal regime.

“You saw differences of how the state and federal systems responded to coronavirus,” Taubes said, ​“and because there was no mechanism for release in the ACLU lawsuit, there were a lot of people I worked with who deserved to be released given their offense, health conditions, how many years they’ve been in prison, etc.”

For Taubes’s clients, the DOC and BOPP haven’t provided the easiest route to freedom. In his experience, he said, the DOC and BOPP decisions are made in a ​“black box” sometimes without any discernible reason.

By pushing for sentence modifications which allow inmates to be released earlier than scheduled, Taubes’s has bypassed the unpredictable and often insurmountable obstacles put in place by the DOC. ​“I’ve worked with about 50 men and women, incarcerated individuals, and we’ve had 10 cases with a total of eight and a half years taken off of sentences,” he said.

Lockdowns, isolation, reduced visitation, and rec time limits spurred by Covid-19 have left inmates feeling unduly punished. ​“It’s so extremely and unusually punishing,” said Taubes. ​“With lockdowns, the denial of the basic amenities of life, the restriction on movement, the restriction on counselling, on programs, the lack of visits from family, the anxiety and fear of contracting a once-in-a-century deadly virus and having no control over your ability to stop that from happening — all of these factors combine to be something that should affect the duration of a just sentence. I think of it as, ​‘Covid good time.’”

Although ​“Covid good time” hasn’t been recognized by the DOC or the BOPP, people over 40 and people with medical needs have been prioritized. The sentenced population has dropped by 34 percent, a number influenced by the decrease of inmate admissions and the purported success of releases by the DOC. 

Sparaco: We’re Trying

In April, multiple protests were organized calling for the release of inmates from prison. Sparaco said he recognizes the challenges that come with adapting to a novel pandemic. He said he is confident that his department is doing the best it can to manage it.

In regard to the allegation that nonviolent offenders are given preference over violent ones for parole, Sparaco said, ​“It’s not as simple to say we favor nonviolent offenders over violent. It’s about risk. We have to look at so many static and dynamic factors to decide. We work off an evidence-based decision-making framework.”

The framework he referred to was adopted when then-Gov. Jodi Rell halted parole for all inmates after the Cheshire home invasion murders of 2007. It is a multi-factor framework backed by peer-reviewed research that provides a comprehensive criterion for evaluating risk. Since the new framework was adopted, Sparaco said, more of the right people are being released, at the right time.

Jake Dressler is a New Haven native and law student focusing on criminal law in Connecticut. He edits Striped Mag.