The Bureau of Prisons is being called on to explain delays in planned renovations to the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution. Connecticut's two U.S. Senators and nine of their colleagues from the northeast have written with concerns over a revised 30-month timeline to renovate Danbury FCI.
In the summer of 2013, the BOP announced plans to transfer out more than one thousand female inmates from Danbury; many were to be sent to a new facility in Aliceville, Alabama. The BOP announced in November 2013 that it had reconsidered its decision. It committed to constructing a new facility for women in Danbury.
"Orange is the New Black" author Piper Kerman, who spent most of her sentence at Danbury, says women have been transferred to facilities that were not designed to house them on a long-term basis. She spent 11 months of her 13 month sentenced in Danbury, with the rest in a federal prison in Chicago. Kerman says a lack of legal resources and rehabilitation programs are just two of the many problems reported by women who were moved away from their families.
Kerman says access essential programming, such as a Residential Drug Abuse Program, has been proven to reduce recidivism and enhance public safety.
Faculty and law students in the Arthur Liman Program at Yale Law School were asked to research and draft a report about the harm that the transition imposes on women. The report about the consequences of extensive delays in the renovations was released Wednesday. The change to a mostly male facility, which were originally scheduled to take 18 months, are not yet underway. It's now estimated to take 30 months.
The minimum-security “camp” at Danbury continues to house approximately 200 women, above its rated capacity of 146, according to the Liman report.
In addition to Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, the letter is signed by U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernard Sanders (D-Vt.), Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-Penn.), and Angus King (D-Maine).
