Mr. Liebowitz is, along with Brent McCall, the author of Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime, reviewed by Connecticut Commentary on February, 2018. Mr. McCall’s most recent book is Sham, Inside the Criminal Corrections Racket, also reviewed by Connecticut Commentary.
By Michael Liebowitz
Anyone who criticizes the prison system invariably runs the risk of coming off as “soft on crime,” and faces accusations of wanting to coddle criminals. This dynamic is especially pronounced when the system’s critic is, like myself, a prison inmate. Our complaints are routinely dismissed as those of people who never respected the rights of others, but now have a heightened concern for their own rights.
Therefore, let me state emphatically that my concern is not only
with the well-being of prisoners, but with the taxpayers who provide the funds
to support a prison system that consistently fails to give them their money’s
worth.
It is important to bear in mind that the prison system is not
merely charged with punishing criminals, but with rehabilitating them so that,
when they return to society, they do so as law abiding citizens. It is in this
latter role that the system so abjectly fails.
It should be noted that while I have been a frequent critic
of the Connecticut Department of Correction, until now I have never called for
a prison to be closed.
My criticisms have been leveled at incompetent and indifferent
staff and administrators, inconsistent and arbitrary rule enforcement, and
inadequate programing, for instance. These are all issues of policy and
implementation, which are subject to remediation. While such criticisms apply
with equal or greater force to Osborn CI, the building itself in this facility is
the overriding problem. This being the case, the problems arising from Osborne
CI can only the settled by closing the facility.
Let us start with the cells, where inmates spend most of
their time. Osborne was opened in the sixties, at a time when the prison
population was much smaller than it is now. The cells were designed to house
only one inmate, not two, as is currently the case. The cells are thus
considerably smaller than those designed for two inmates in the newer
institutions such as Macdougal CI. Furthermore, in the sixties the inmates had
less property than two men sharing an extremely tight space. If you consider
that criminals are not exactly known for their social skills and adaptability,
you will have no problem understanding that this frequently leads to a high
level of tension between cell mates. This tension is exacerbated when one of
the cell mates is trying to rehabilitate himself, while the other is not.
The last thing I will discuss pertaining to cells is what,
for me, is the most aggravating aspect of being confined in Osborn CI: all the
windows in the cell doors, which are about 12” wide by 18” high, are wide-open, containing neither glass nor Plexiglas. This allows inmates to constantly
yell to each other, while there is nothing obstructing this noise or the noise
from recreation from entering one’s cell. This severely impedes one’s ability
to read, write and introspect, all of which are essential to the rehabilitative
process.
The cell blocks at Osborn CI initially were constructed to
contain half the number of inmates presently housed in the facility -- at a
time when there was no block recreation. Recreation at that time was held
outside or in the gym. Now there is block recreation. Forcing so many inmates
into such a cramped space results in a very loud and unruly environment. It also
hinders inmates’ ability to walk around. This last may seem trivial, but when
circumstances, such as the recent pandemic, necessitate our being confined to
our blocks, such walking may be the only exercise we get. And remember who it
is that pays the medical bills for unhealthy inmates.
Then there are the shower rooms which, at least in H and B blocks, are wholly inadequate, if judged by reasonable modern standards. These are small rooms consisting of three showerheads on each side separated from each other by roughly two feet. And while showers are meant for only six guys, there are, due to time constraints, often eight or nine inmates jammed together, allowing communicable diseases such as COVID and influenza to spread easily.
Even more disturbing, at least to my mind, is the fact that
what goes on in these rooms is completely out of sight of the block officers.
This makes it relatively easy for inmates to get away with committing acts of
violence, as well as sex acts, both voluntary and involuntary. In the age of
the “Prison Rape Elimination Act,” one would have thought that such shower
rooms should have gone the way of the Dodo.
Finally, there are prison maintenance issues. In addition to
the defective heating and frequent losses of hot water, these issues have
caused my entire block to be relocated three times in the last year. Other
blocks similarly were relocated, most recently two weeks ago, in response to
the prison’s problems with Legionnaires’ disease. This resulted in more than a
hundred inmates sleeping on the floors of the prison’s two gyms. In my 23 years
of incarceration prior to October of 2020, I had never, for any reason, seen
an entire housing block relocated. To me, this speaks volumes about the
condition of this facility.
Now, difficult as it may be to envision, try to imagine what
it is like to live day by day in such a facility as I have described, sharing a
bathroom sized room with a veritable sociopath, being inundated with a constant
cacophony of screaming inmates, forced to shower in a narrow space with five other prisoners, and
being shuffled from block to block several times in the course of a year. On
top of this, we are locked down every weekend due to staff shortages. Perhaps
some think we deserve this, and perhaps we do, but how much personal growth,
the avowed goal of modern penology, can be achieved while living in such an
environment? And how much more daunting this task is for criminals who are
already behind the eight ball. Who could possibly want someone unimproved by
such primitive conditions to move into their community upon release from
prison?
In closing, I think it bears mention that the prison
population has been cut by more than half in recent years, and here in Connecticut prisons
already have been closed. Two of the closed facilities, Radgowski and Northern, were
relatively new, having been opened in the nineties. Why Connecticut chose to close down two modem penitentiaries
while leaving this dinosaur open is anyone’s guess. Osborn’s features render it
a failed institution, a danger to both guards and inmates. It needs to be
closed.
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