Report: Youths face 'alarming' isolation in Connecticut's adult prisons

Young men housed in Connecticut’s adult prisons have spent long periods in isolation, receiving almost no programming or mental health services, few visits, little recreation and frequent strip searches — conditions that have caused downward mental health spirals in some of these youths, the state Office of the Child Advocate said Wednesday.

In a new report, the Child Advocate found that youths between ages 18 and 21 who have been designated “security risks” — a specialized status generally given to young people thought to be gang members — were being held in restrictive housing units for months and sometimes years with little activity and extreme isolation.

“The degree of isolation and inactivity for the 18- to 21-year-olds on these restrictive statuses is alarming,” the report stated.

The Child Advocate recommended that all incarcerated young men aged 21 or younger should be housed in Manson Youth Institute, the prison for juvenile boys. They should not be transferred to other adult facilities and should not be held in restrictive housing for lengthy periods — as was often the case at MacDougall-Walker, Corrigan and Garner Correctional Institutions, the report said.

Several of the young men whose cases the Child Advocate reviewed had been in restrictive housing for over a year. For some, it had been over three years.

A law passed in 2022 requires all incarcerated men and women in Connecticut to spend at least four hours outside their cells. But interviews OCA conducted with staff and incarcerated individuals in 2023 and 2024 showed that requirement often went unmet. Their food was served through a slot in the door. Incarcerated youths were placed in restraints every time they needed to leave the cell and regularly strip-searched.

“OCA staff observed multiple 18- to 21-year-olds who were not permitted to have pillows, pajamas, or sweatpants. They did not have access to a television, a radio, paper or writing instruments, or even a photo album,” the report read. One boy said he didn’t go outside for recreation because “he did not have a sweater or jacket, and it was cold outside.”

At MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution, the recreation area is a chain-link cage “in an area enclosed by tall concrete walls such that only the sky is visible,” and there are no chairs or tables. In Corrigan Correctional Institution, where the young people were on a lower level of restriction, they had more time to socialize and participate in activities like playing cards.

Youths who are considered “security risks” are supposed to participate in programming encouraging them to disaffiliate from gangs. But in the majority of the cases cited in the report, the young men did not have the opportunity to participate in programming or groups and didn’t receive any visits from family or friends.

Living under these conditions can push young men, some of whom already had mental health diagnoses when they came into the Department of Correction, into a further state of distress. When that happens, the report states, the young person rarely gets the mental health care that they need, and is often punished when they begin to act out.

This was the case for Jeremy, a young person whose story was included in the Child Advocate’s report. After three years of living in severe isolation, Jeremy started to report having trouble sleeping. His mood was unstable, he paced the floor of his cell and punched the wall. He told a medical professional that he felt like nothing was helping to calm his spinning thoughts.

When Jeremy started acting out — including covering his cell window and flooding the cell — department staff responded by taking away his recreational time and visits, placing him in restraints and pepper-spraying him. Jeremy reported suicidal thoughts and threatened to harm himself, but mental health workers did not change his mental health classification to indicate greater severity. He was hospitalized twice for self-harm but did not receive immediate mental health care upon returning to DOC.

At one point, Jeremy was placed in restrictive housing as punishment for 21 days straight, even though Connecticut law limits solitary confinement to 15 consecutive days.

The report also found that young men reported not receiving access to education. Schedules from MacDougall-Walker and Corrigan Correctional Institutions called for two hours of education each day, but the Child Advocate found that schedule wasn’t followed.

“Many (late adolescent boys) reported receiving no educational services for weeks at a time, without explanation,” the report stated.

Special education services were also significantly cut back in many cases, since adult facilities only offer a GED program rather than a traditional diploma. In some cases, young men consented to “exit” special education altogether because of the prospect of strip-searches and restrictions of movement that would come with leaving their cells.

Andrius Banevicius, spokesperson for the Department of Correction, told CT Mirror in a statement that the department’s leaders were reviewing the Child Advocate’s report “in order to determine the appropriate next steps and course of action.”

“The administration thanks the Child Advocate for her diligent work, as well as her shared commitment to protecting the best interest of the adolescents under the supervision of the DOC,” Banevicius said.

The report acknowledged that the Department of Correction had made some improvements, including changing the schedules at MacDougall-Walker, Corrigan and Garner to allow four hours of out-of-cell time for incarcerated young men, creating a vegetable garden and outdoor visiting space at Garner and adding a space for education at MacDougall. The department also commissioned a study in 2023 to look at restrictive housing use in the department and make recommendations.

More needs to be done, the Child Advocate’s Office says. That includes clear restrictions on transfers to adult facilities and limits on restraints and strip searches.

The report also suggested the creation of a working group to make recommendations to the state legislature about limiting the use of restrictive housing.