Faced with deep budget cuts and a declining prison population, the state plans to close the medium-security Enfield Correctional Institution - the fourth closing in less than two years.
The decision to shutter the facility by October 1 was driven by the immediate need to save $70 million, which translates into the elimination of about 1,200 positions in the prisons, said Michael P. Lawlor, a former Democratic state legislator who is now Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's prisons and criminal justice czar. The Enfield prison is an integral part of that budget-cutting plan.
"The big picture is this: all the agencies have to make significant cuts,'' Lawlor said.
The plan is being enacted because state employees turned down a four-year, no-layoff deal that included a two-year wage freeze and changes in the employees' healthcare and pension benefits. The prison guards were among the most outspoken in their opposition to the deal that was struck by union leaders and the Malloy administration.
Enfield would be the fourth prison to close in less than two years in a move that would have been unthinkable during the 1990s when the prison population was growing under the get-tough-on-crime tenure of Republican Gov. John G. Rowland. The state had been in a building boom - opening new prisons on a steady basis that included the "super max'' prison in Somers.
In a sharp reversal from those days, the prisons are now closing. The Webster prison in Cheshire was closed in January 2010 under Gov. M. Jodi Rell, and the Gates prison in Niantic was shut down recently on June 1. The Bergin Correctional Institution in Mansfield is scheduled to close in early August, and then Enfield would be in October. While the immediate plans are budget-driven, they would not be possible without the decline in the prison population to its lowest level in about 10 years.
"The reason Bergin was chosen is that's the easiest prison to close quickly,'' Lawlor said. "They need to lay people off as soon as possible to get these savings.''
Bergin is filled with low-risk inmates who are at the end of their sentences, as well as those who have been convicted of multiple drunken driving offenses. In all cases of the prison closings, officials stressed that the inmates would be switched to other prisons around the state - rather than being let out of jail early.
Of Enfield's 713 inmates, about half would be reassigned to various prisons. In addition, about 350 criminals would be switched to the infamous "north block'' of the Cheshire Correctional Institution that has been empty for about 15 years.
"It was held in reserve in case of an emergency, like a fire or a riot, in which inmates could go overnight,'' Lawlor said. "It's like 100 years old, but it has been renovated. It's not the modern style of prison, but it can safely accommodate 350 inmates. It's not ideal, but it's safe. It can be done.''
The "north block'' became controversial when some prison guards said that inmates should be sent there during the years when inmates were being sent out of state by Rowland. In addition, some said that the north block should have been opened after the prison population increased sharply after the July 2007 triple murder at the Cheshire home of Dr. William Petit and his family.