CT Doc is trying to hide from finding prison brutality

“A $ 1.3 million verdict exposed the prison brutality. Now Doc wants to hide the evidence. “

In October last year, a federal jury in Connecticut sent a resounding message, granting $ 1.3 million to an incarcerated person who suffered a brutal attack on a prison guard. The verdict was a rare moment of responsibility for the correction department of our state, which worked too long with impunity, protected by a significant public control.

The decision of the jury should have been a awakening call, a catalyst for change and reform within DOC. In contrast, what we have seen from penitentiary officials following the process is more the same thing – a doubling of the secret, a desperate attempt to publicly hide the evidence that caused the ordinary citizens to conclude that the doc had violated the constitutional rights.

The latest savage in this opacity campaign is a statement from Deputy Commissioner William Mulligan, potentially written by the Attorney General’s Office, implicating the court to block the release of videos that were played during the trial. Mulligan’s statement is a Masterclass in Fearmongering, a parade of pits that detail the supposed “irreparable” that would happen in the dock, if the public had allowed to see with their eyes how the department operates behind the walls of the prison.

But Mulligan’s doomsday prophesy sounds empty. The videos they are trying to suppress were already played in the open yard. The jury saw him and gave the prisoner a $ 1.3 million verdict. The idea that their release now would endanger the security of prison is as risky as unpleasant.

As ACLU notes in a recent registration of the court, Mulligan’s statement “faces the fact that the people living (at Garner Correctional Institution) will watch the videos to find out the location of” metal detectors, supervisor offices (“, medical locations” and other features of a building in which they spend twenty-four years. “This is laughing – if the secret of the government that is absolutely dangerous has not served.

As ACLU rightly emphasizes, “the preparations of the document are very confused by the reality that people living at Garner are not full of eyes while traveling through prison every day.” The prisoners are intimately familiar with each angle and a crack of the installation. They do not need a video to give a revelation on the appearance or routines of the place where they live.

No, the real reason why the document wants these buried videos is not an authentic concern for institutional security. It is due to the fact that those videos have revealed the cultivity and dehumanization culture that enter our prison system. It is due to the fact that those videos look in detail graphic, uncensored, how easily the doc staff to violence against those in their custody. It is due to the fact that the videos make them look bad. Videos are a security threat, but for the already beaten public image of the document. And the image control, not safety, seems to be the primordial concern of the department.