Town Compiling Calling List for Prison Warning System

By Andrew Gorosko

The town is seeking residents who want to be notified by telephone when there is an emergency at Garner Correctional Institution, the state’s high-security prison on Nunnawauk Road.

Garner Warden James Dzurenda on September 20 told members of the Public Safety Committee for Garner Correctional Institution that the prison has installed the telephone and computer equipment that will be used for the warning system.

The warning system will be used to notify the public of emergencies at the 260,000-square-foot facility, which housed 632 male inmates on September 20. Garner is a “Level 4” prison in a prison system in which the highest security is Level 5. The prison has about 300 staff members.

Garner is the state’s prime prison for inmates with serious mental health disorders, with six of its seven cellblocks reserved for mental health inmates.

Warden Dzurenda said the automated calling system will place sequential prerecorded telephone calls to a prioritized list of people who want to be notified. The system is now capable of placing 60 calls per hour.

A prerecorded message will inform people of prison emergencies such as prison fires, prisoner riots, prisoner escapes, and the evacuation of prisoners from Garner for problems such as natural gas leaks, Warden Dzurenda said. 

The automated warning system would leave messages on telephone answering machines, if such devices intercept the incoming calls of people on the calling list.

A second telephone call would be made to people on the calling list informing them when the emergency has been resolved, the warden said.

The warning system also would place test calls to its users to gauge its reliability.

Such automated warning systems are in use at other state prisons.

Police Chief Michael Kehoe said September 21 that the town will compile a calling list for the warning system based on applications from residents. There is no charge to be on the calling list, he said.

Only local telephone numbers may be placed on the calling list, he said. Cellular telephone numbers will be placed on the calling list, provided that they are local telephone numbers, he said.

“It’s a ‘painless’ system,” Chief Kehoe said, noting that all that residents need to do to participate is have their telephone numbers placed on the calling list. No special equipment, such as pagers, is required, he said.

To apply to be on the calling list, residents may call the police station at 426-5841 and request that an application form be mailed to them. Also, residents may request an application by mail from police at Newtown Police Department, 3 Main Street, Newtown CT 06470.

Chief Kehoe said that the town will soon post the four-page calling list application form on the town’s website at: www.newtown-ct.gov/Home/.   

Chief Kehoe said the town hopes to have the Garner warning system in operation by late October.

Garner opened in November 1992. In its first year of operation, Garner experienced a prison riot, plus a nighttime escape of two inmates. The DOC later heightened security to forestall such incidents.

Following those early emergencies at Garner, the DOC created a prison warning system based on the use of alphanumeric pagers or “beepers.” That warning system started in 1994, but has fallen out of use.

By 2001, during a test of that beeper system conducted by police, only two beeper users responded to a test message that sought a response from beeper system users. 

Public safety committee members later surmised that the beepers may simply be sitting in people’s drawers unused and unreplenished with fresh batteries, may have been discarded, or may have left town with residents who moved away.

After it became apparent that the beeper system was no longer an effective way to notify people of prison emergencies, public safety committee members considered installing a warning siren for public notification of prison emergencies, but dropped that idea, later settling on an automated telephone call warning system.