According to CTMirror, Lawlor’s target was “Susan Hatfield, a
state prosecutor from eastern Connecticut who was a Donald J. Trump delegate in
2016 and once worked in Washington as a young policy aide to former U.S. House
Speaker Newt Gingrich…” Hatfield, a Republican, is running for the Attorney
General spot soon to be vacated by George Jepsen.
For any number of
reasons, this was not the brightest tweet in Lawlor’s constellation of tweets.
Imputing racism to all Trump delegates smacks of McCarthyism, and Hatfield is a
woman who should be able to toss her hat into a political ring without being peppered
by politicians operating in the #me-too era who ought to be conscious of
possible offenses against women entering the political theatre.
Lawlor instantly was
denounced by State Sen. Heather Somers of Groton, who called him “a hypocrite
for saying he supports more women running for state office and then attacking a
female candidate on social media.” Somers called upon Lawlor to issue a formal
apology. One imagines Lawlor yawning at the prospect of an apology before
conferring on yet another violent convicted criminal a slew of get-out-of-jail-early
credits that in some cases have resulted in murder and attempted murder.
This is not the
first time Lawlor has wandered into a briar patch.
Senator Len Suzio,
who for years has been attempting to reform Lawlor’s misnamed Risk Reduction
Earned Credits Program, noted recently that Kiwaun Cole had received credits “in 67 of the 72 months he was eligible to receive the
credits. This resulted in his discharge on November 29, 2017 rather than his
sentence date of May 11, 2020. He never should have been on the
streets in the first place.” Upon release, Cole procured a gun and attempted to
murder a police officer in Hamden. “It was nothing short of a miracle,” Suzio said, “that
the Hamden Police Officer was able to walk away unhurt.”
Victims of Lawlor’s program will not be amused by its Orwellian title. In
the first year of its operation, credits were extended retroactively to
relevant criminals. They had not “earned” the freebie credits. Suzio has
pointed out, “Of the first year
group of 8,727 discharges with risk reduction credits, there were 8,351 ‘readmissions’
to prison for various crimes -- 95.69%.”
The high rate of recidivism suggests
that few risks had been reduced in the early years of the program. (See addenda for additional data below)
Lawlor boasts a
varied background. He graduated from the University of Connecticut as an Honors
Scholar in Slavic and Eastern European Studies in 1979, an interesting time.
“May you live,’ the ancient Chinese curse has it, “in interesting times.”
The Soviet Union, a rancid ideological bubble, had not yet burst, and Premier
Leonid Brezhnev had commenced a ten year war against the mujahideen in Afghanistan, often called “the
graveyard of empires.” The Soviet Army ultimately was pushed out of Afghanistan by
mujahideen groups backed by the United States and Pakistan. The Soviet Union was
officially dissolved in 1991, the same year “Maverick” Governor Lowell Weicker
imposed an income tax on Connecticut. Students of communism – Lawlor likely was
one – will understand that the communist manifesto written by Karl Marx and
Fredrick Engels recommends “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax,” among
other measures, including the centralization of “all instruments of production
in the hands of the State,” to assist the proletariat in destroying predatory
capitalism.
By 1991, Lawlor had
been serving in Connecticut’s General Assembly for four years as a
Representative from East Haven. In the course of his career in the state House,
where he served as Co-Chairman of the Judiciary Committee along with State
Senator Andrew McDonald, Lawlor battled for the abolition of Connecticut’s
death penalty. Lawlor supported an abolition bill, later vetoed by Governor
Jodi Rell. His fellow anti-death penalty agitator, McDonald, thought at the
time that death was a less severe punishment than life in prison. “Death is too
kind for some of these defendants,” McDonald said.
Connecticut Commentary noted at the time that this excessively
sentimental notion was “another bumper-sticker thought that allows an opponent
of the death penalty to slather himself with concern for the victims of
convicted murderers, any one of whom, unlike McDonald, would rationally prefer
life in prison with amenities to death without amenities.” Lawlor’s compatriot,
McDonald, was recently appointed to Connecticut’s State Supreme Court, where he
was able to join a slender majority in abolishing the death penalty for the 11
often convicted Death Row prisoners whose execution, McDonald thought, would be
too kind. McDonald’s has been nominated for Chief Justice of Connecticut’s high
court by his political patron, outgoing Governor Dannel Malloy.
In 2009, Lawlor and
McDonald slid past the noses of their fellow legislators Raised Bill No.1098 that, had it been enacted, would have abolished the apostolic structure of the
Catholic Church. A massive rally at the
Capitol killed the bill. Lawlor’s own penology reforms were likewise tucked
deep inside an innocuous bill, perhaps to avoid immediate scrutiny. It is
difficult to imagine a legislature voting to accept a penology reform that
awarded early release credits to such violent convicted criminals as rapists,
arsonists and pedophiles.
God smiling on his
venture, Suzio may be lucky enough this time to garner support in the General Assembly for his own moderate reforms of
Lawlor’s immoderate and ill-conceived program.
________________________________
ADDENDA
________________________________
ADDENDA
Data assembled by Suzio:
During the first 6 years and 4 months (76 months) since the inception of the "risk reduction" earned credits program, the following statistics apply based on DOC data obtained by a FOIA request:
During the first 6 years and 4 months (76 months) since the inception of the "risk reduction" earned credits program, the following statistics apply based on DOC data obtained by a FOIA request:
- 69,912 discharges from Connecticut
prisons
- 51,741 individual inmates were in the
discharge records
- 48,162 discharges involved inmates who
had received Risk Reduction Earned Credits
- 39,176 individual inmates were in the
discharged prison population that were released with "RREC's"
- The first year (Sept 1, 2011
- August 31, 2012) cohort of discharged prisoners who had received
RREC's consisted of 8,727 prison inmates
- Of the first year group of 8,727
discharges with risk reduction credits, there were 8,351 "readmissions"
to prison for various crimes - 95.69%
- Of the group of prisoners discharged
early from prison with risk reduction credits during the 72 months since
inception the following serious crimes were committed resulting in
"readmission" to Connecticut prisons once again
- 119 murders
- 154 rapes
- 24 acts of arson
- 1,916 assaults
- 1,988 acts of burglary or robbery
- 63 kidnappings
- 1,542 drug related crimes
- The
murders amount to more than 1 every 3 weeks, and the rapes amount to
almost a rape every other week.
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