We can reduce that number.
Like most states, Connecticut’s incarcerated population has exploded in recent decades.
Between 1980 and 2008, the state’s incarcerated population grew by 368 percent. As of June 1, 2019, there were 13,001 people incarcerated across the state. In spite of this growth, Connecticut’s population has decreased in more recent years, and is projected to fall below 10,000 people by mid-2023.
In 2016, there were 22,827 admissions to the state’s correctional facilities, and nearly three-quarters of these were pretrial admissions of people who had not been convicted of a crime. Community supervision violations are a significant driver of admissions to correctional facilities in Connecticut. Between October and December 2018, 36 percent of all non-pretrial admissions were for revocations of community supervision, including people revoked from parole, special parole, and probation.
Parole grant rates in Connecticut have declined in recent years. Between 2008 and 2018, the number of parole hearings resulting in denial increased by 55 percent, and the number of such hearings held annually in Connecticut decreased by 40 percent between 2008 and 2018.
Unsurprisingly, Connecticut’s incarceration crisis has had a particularly severe impact on people of color. In 2017, the incarceration rate of Black adults in the state was more than nine times that of adults, and while they made up just 10 percent of the state’s adult population, Black people made up 41 percent of the incarcerated population that year.
In spite of decreases in incarcerated population, the population of women in Connecticut correctional facilities is decreasing at a slower rate than the total population. This is true for both the sentenced and pretrial populations of women in Connecticut correctional facilities.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Connecticut can dramatically reduce its incarcerated population by implementing just a few sensible reforms:
- Expanding on diversion programs such as the Early Screening and Intervention Pilot Program started in 2017 in the Bridgeport and Waterbury courts.
- Expanding treatment for mental health and drug dependence.
- Eliminating mandatory minimums, truth-in-sentencing, life, life without parole, and nearly life sentences.
- Reforming the state’s parole system.
For more information, along with a detailed breakdown of Connecticut’s incarcerated population and the reforms needed to reduce it, click here.