Lawsuit seeks to keep prisoners with mental illness out of Northern Correctional
Claims solitary confinement and in-cell shackling amount to discrimination
A desk and a steel slab that would serve as a frame under a thin mattress at Northern Correctional Institution. The lawsuit alleges those incarcerated at the Somers prison spend up to 24 hours a day in their cells, confined to this space. The image is a still photo corrections officers took of an empty cell for a documentary about the prison, according to lawyers involved in the lawsuit.
Northern Correctional Institution’s use of solitary confinement and in-cell shackling amounts to discrimination against prisoners with mental illnesses, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday that seeks to end those practices.
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Advocates say one of President Joe Biden’s first executive orders shows hopes for transgender high school athletes in Connecticut. The order bans discrimination based on gender identity in school sports.
Four high school track runners sued in 2019 to prevent two transgender girls from competing alongside them. The Trump administration backed their claim the transgender girls had an unfair advantage.
Elana Bildner is with the ACLU of Connecticut.
“It certainly helped those private plaintiffs to know they had a friend in the White House. And to be able to try to cite to the very twisted interpretations of civil rights laws that the former administration had,” Bildner said.
Panel monitoring response to COVID pandemic finds most people in prisons and jails are wearing masks
Cloe Poisson :: CT Mirror.org
A sign was taped to a car window calling for the freeing of prisoners at York Correctional Institution in Niantic, Monday, April 13, 2020, during a car protest by community organizers and prison advocates in a park next the women’s prison. They were calling for the release of prisoners who are at risk on infection from the Covid-19 virus.
During four visits to prisons and jails in October and November, a five-member monitoring panel formed as a result of the ACLU of Connecticut’s class action lawsuit on COVID-19 in correctional facilities found that most incarcerated people and staff were wearing masks.