by Jamil Ragland CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT – In raw and sometimes emotional personal testimony at the state Capitol, prison reform advocates called out the General Assembly and the state’s Democratic majority specifically for their failure to pass a host of legislation aimed at correcting deficiencies in the treatment of incarcerated people.
Ken Krayeske, a Hartford-based attorney who has taken on several cases for inmates against the Department of Correction, took issue with Section 4 of SB 1543 being left out of the budget implementer, while all other sections of the bill were accepted. Section 4 would have required DOC to publicly release a 2017 report that detailed nearly 50 cases of “extreme cases of medical malpractice and neglect experienced by persons in the custody of the commissioner” and required DOC to inform any next-of-kin of incarcerated people listed in the report.
“Why is the Connecticut Department of Correction afraid of eight-year-old medical care that they have already judged to be bad?” he asked. “Why do we prevent these people from getting their day in court? And my thought is that if we are a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, we should acknowledge at the end of the day that people make mistakes, that people need to be held accountable and people should say they’re sorry when they do something wrong.”
Several advocates who have had direct dealings with DOC came forward to speak about the negligent treatment they received while in custody. Glenn London, who was incarcerated at Bridgeport Correctional Facility in January 2023, told a harrowing story of how corrections officials at the facility ignored him when he informed them that a VA Medical Center told him he needed immediate medical treatment for a potential mass on his bladder.
London said he only received care on his court date, when marshalls took him to the hospital due to blood in his urine. After being transferred to Carl Robinson Correctional Facility in Enfield, he was rushed to UConn, where it was discovered he had stage-3 cancer and a mass the size of a golf ball.
“If they didn’t catch it then, it could have been fatal,” he said. “From that point, I had aggressive chemotherapy, over 28 rounds with two different types of chemotherapies. I was near death. Then I was scheduled for a nine-hour operation to where they removed my bladder, my lymph nodes, my prostate. I now have to live with an urology bag. I can’t pick up my grandson in a normal way that any grandfather would want to pick him up.”
Robyn Bracey shared the story of how her father, Robert Bracey, died after less than 24 hours in custody at the Bridgeport Correctional Facility. A report by Disability Rights CT, which refers to Bracey as John Doe, noted multiple failures by the staff, including a failure to administer adequate medical care and lifesaving measures to Bracey.
Robyn Bracey talks about her father, Robert, who died at the Bridgeport Correctional Facility less than 24 hours after arriving in June 2022, in the State Capitol in Hartford on June 3, 2025. Credit: Jamil Ragland / CTNewsJunkie
“His life was taken from him,” Bracey said through sobs. “With the fact of them knowing that he had ALS, they refused to give him medical care and the attention that he needed when they found him unresponsive. I just want you all to know that he was more than a dad. He was a hero. He was a best friend. Whatever we can do here at the State Capitol now, let’s make change, not just for him, but for the next, for the future, for anyone else who goes in here with a medical issue or a problem.”
Ivelisse Correa, an activist with BLM 860, was blunt in her criticism of Democrats in the General Assembly.
“This session has been an absolute waste of Democratic supermajority,” she said. “As Democrats fail to pass their own bills, they blame Republicans, despite the fact that the news just said the other day – and Matt Ritter admitted – that they do have the option to shut down endless Republican debate to force a vote. And they haven’t used that once this session. So while it’s very easy to blame Donald Trump, it’s easy to blame Rob Sampson, it’s a Democrat problem where they can override any veto by the governor.”
She specifically mentioned Senate Bill 1541, which would strengthen the Office of the Correction Ombudsman, and Senate Bill 1543, which would provide more mental health resources and other improved medical care to inmates, as bills that the General Assembly had not yet called up with only a day before the session ends.
For those reasons, Barabara Fair, an activist with Stop Solitary CT, called into question whether prison reformers can rely on support at the capitol.
“It’s time for real change, not symbolic gestures, not the photo ops, the nepotism that’s going wild in our current administration,” she said. “Connecticut needs to restore its moral center and build toward a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. This legislature may not have the answers we need. It’s time to rethink our strategies if we’re ever going to gain freedom and equity in Connecticut.”