Gang Member Custody Program Planned For Garner

 By Andrew Gorosko

The state Department of Correction (DOC) plans to operate a specialized program at Garner Correctional Institution on Nunnawauk Road where young prisoners affiliated with gangs would receive schooling intended to help them obtain their general equivalency diplomas (GED).

Garner Warden Scott Semple told members of the Public Safety Committee for Garner Correctional Institution on March 6 that a specialized housing unit would hold up to 16 male prisoners who are ages 19 through 21.

Two special education teachers would instruct the young inmates who have been identified by the DOC as gang-affiliated prisoners, Warden Semple said.

Having Garner as the site for the program would allow the DOC to have the Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire focus on housing prisoners who are 14 through 16 years old, Warden Semple said.

“I’m pretty excited about it,” he said, noting that the high-security Garner has not previously had such a custody program for young prisoners.

The prison is making some physical changes so that the 16 young prisoners who participate in the program will remain isolated from older inmates, Warden Semple said.

 The goal of the program, which is scheduled to start later this month, is to have the inmates renounce their gang affiliations, obtain their GEDs, and broadly not return to prison after they are released from custody.

Garner correction staff members have expressed interest in working in the specialized program, the warden said.

The inmates in the program would be held in “close custody,” so that they could not have any interactions with members of opposing gangs, he said.

In another matter at the March 6 committee meeting, Warden Semple told panel members that the prison held 632 inmates that day.

Of that number, 293 prisoners were classified as mental health inmates, 195 prisoners were in the general population, and 144 men were unsentenced inmates who are awaiting trail on pending criminal charges.

Unsentenced inmates are typically those who are transported to and from the prison for court appearances in their pending cases.

Warden Semple said that 56 of the 632 inmates in Garner on March 6 were housed in the prison gymnasium due to DOC overflow conditions. Most of those unsentenced overflow prisoners would normally be housed at jails in New Haven and Bridgeport, he said.

First Selectman Pat Llodra noted that overflow conditions at Garner have existed for a long time.

Warden Semple said that the number of inmates housed in the gym recently had dropped to 19, but then rose to 56.

The warden said he is concerned that during the past two months, there have been four incidents at Garner in which prisoners attacked prison staff members. Three of those incidents involved mental health inmates attacking staff, he said. State police investigate such cases.

The public safety committee meets quarterly to address public safety issues posed by the presence of Garner, a 245,000-square-foot state prison that opened in November 1992.