NCJ Number
161578
Journal
Keepers' Voice Volume: 17 Issue: 2 Dated: (Spring 1996) Pages: 35-37
Date Published
1996
Length
3 pages
Annotation
After nearly losing control of its prison to gangs in the early 1990's, Connecticut has restored order by offering violent gang members a choice: repudiate your blood oath to the group or serve your entire sentence locked in a cell 23 hours a day.
Abstract
Connecticut sends gang leaders to a maximum-security prison, the Garner Correctional Institution, where they are told there is only one way out of permanent lockdown. That way is 5 months of classes and counseling designed to instruct them in how to control anger, how to trust people, and how to survive outside a gang. If they make it to graduation, their reward is a standard- issue khaki uniform, instead of the canary-yellow jumpsuit they wear at Garner; they are released back into the general population of inmates, where they are expected to avoid their former gang. Of 195 men who have graduated in the last 14 months, only four have violated their new oath to the Department of Corrections and have been returned to Garner. Prisons that were the origins of many gangs are calm again. Although civil- liberties advocates are concerned about locking down inmates based on gang affiliation, they acknowledge that prisons have wide latitude in handling such inmates, especially those who commit violent acts in prison.