by Jamil Ragland CTNewsJunkie
WETHERSFIELD, CT — A group of activists seeking prison reform chose Juneteenth to speak out about what they called the inhumane treatment people endure while incarcerated by the Connecticut Department of Correction.
Barbara Fair, of Stop Solitary CT, said that for too long, the people of Connecticut have lived under the illusion of false freedom.
“Today, as I stand in front of the (Department of Corrections) administrative building, we must acknowledge the reality of freedom and justice in Connecticut and the lack of access to quality health care, education, and economic opportunities (for incarcerated people,)” she said. “We must acknowledge that slavery is not dead. It’s alive and well inside the walls of the prisons and jails across this state. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution kept slavery alive (for incarcerated people), where cheap labor and indifference to the wellbeing of those held in custody is a fact.”
Nancy Peters, a prison reform advocate who has worked with Stop Solitary CT for years, called on the public to defend the rights of the incarcerated as readily as they are willing to defend others’ rights.
“I’m happy that people of conscience band together and fight back when the rights of immigrants, poor people, women, LGBTQ+ people are taken away,” she said. “All this is great. But why is it that, on a daily basis, when the rights of incarcerated people are violated in the extreme, it’s met with a profound silence from the public?”
Stop Solitary CT also brought forth speakers with first hand experience of the conditions inside Connecticut’s prisons. Shawn Kinnell was incarcerated for 13 years, spending time at several correctional facilities, including Carl Robinson in Enfield. Despite only having been released a few months ago, Kinnell said he felt it was his responsibility to speak out for those whose voices are silenced within the walls.
Shawn Kinnell, who spent 13 years incarcerated, shares his first-hand experience in the state’s correctional institutions. Credit: Jamil Ragland / CTNewsJunkie
“I don’t like reliving these events, but we have to keep telling these stories,” he said. “People think that criminals just need to be punished. Well, our incarceration is the punishment. The way that we’re treated inside is another punishment beyond the punishment.”
Karen Conley, who served as a nurse at York Correctional Institution for two months in 2024, shared similar stories of inmates being denied medical care, calling what she saw “appalling.”
“I saw nurses withhold Tylenol from inmates for hours for no reason,” she said. “One inmate was going through drug withdrawals and was forced to puke all over her cell without so much as a puking bucket. Her cellmate had to help her try to clean up without any supplies, so they sat in their puke filled cell.
Stop Solitary CT’s major policy push is to end the use of what the group calls “dehumanizing, degrading” strip searches. Fair said the group would try to use Sec. 53a-73a of the Connecticut General Statutes to address the issue, which defines sexual assault in the 4th degree as any act where a person subjects another person to nonconsensual sexual contact, including for people “in custody of law or detained in a hospital or other institution and the actor has supervisory or disciplinary authority over such other person.”
In an emailed statement, the department noted that its Health Services Unit includes about 600 healthcare professionals to provide medical care to the incarcerated population. When an individual needs acute or specialized care, they are taken to an outside hospital or specialist for further treatment, according to the statement.
The department said staff conduct strip searches solely for safety and security reasons such as limiting the conveyance of drugs and weapons and said it was working to procure body scanning chairs, which would reduce the number of searches.