Paul Ciccarelli walked out of the Whalley Avenue jail and into freedom to find himself greeted by three dozen protesters rallying for the release of more inmates during the Covid-19 pandemic.

We love you, stay strong! the protesters sang. We love you, stay strong!

That was the scene Monday afternoon on Hudson Street outside of the western entrance to the New Haven Correctional Center at 245 Whalley Ave.

Roughly 40 people from New Haven, Bridgeport, New London, and Hamden marched from County Street to Goffe Street and over to Hudson as part of a Free Them All demonstration organized by the Connecticut Bail Fund and New London Building It Together along with formerly incarcerated people and their families.

As they marched on foot, another dozen people drove in a car caravan around the state jail, honking and cheering to let those on the inside know that the protesters were outside and rallying on their behalf.

Ciccarelli, a 51-year-old North Haven resident, didnt know that the protest would be taking place at the same time that he happened to be released from the state jail after more than two years on the inside.

Holding a brown paper bag filled with his belongings and wearing a light blue surgical mask wrapped around his mouth and nose, Ciccarelli was in shock.

Its overwhelming, he said. To be greeted the way I was just greeted. It feels really good.

Instead, they were there as part of the CT Bail Funds months-long campaign to pressure the state to reduce Connecticuts prison population and enact a host of reforms designed to protect inmates during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mondays protest organizers called for the state to release at least half of the the state Department of Corrections (DOC) current incarcerated population because of the near impossibility of practicing social distancing, improve hygiene at existing facilities, enforce mask wearing among correctional staff, and establish new independent review bodies for everything from sentence modifications to sexual assault complaint investigations. (A complete list of their demands appears later in this article.)

Richardson said that the Bail Funds demands werent pulled from thin air. Rather, they are based on comments and concerns that Bail Fund prison hotline volunteers have heard directly from inmates over the past four months as theyve called to check in on conditions in prisons and jails throughout the state.

Four of those hotline volunteers put together a scathing written assessment of conditions at the New Haven jail in particular based on their conversations with inmates. A DOC spokesperson denied several of the allegations included in the report, and heralded the extraordinary job that DOC has done so far at protecting inmates while also reducing the states prison population by more than 2,500 people in the last few months. See more below.

When asked about conditions on the inside, he chuckled to himself.

Id rather eat off this street than some of the stuff inside there, he said.

Food complaints aside, Ciccarelli said that the prison staff did a mixed job in protecting inmates like himself from Covid.

He said that he received a care package with shampoo, soap, deodorant, and toothpaste every two weeks. (He said he believed that package came from a donation from Yale, though he wasnt sure.)

Prison staff would hand out one new, washable cloth face covering to each inmate every two weeks. Earlier in the pandemic, he said, staff handed masks out just once a month.

Ciccarelli said he knew 12 fellow inmates among the 51 detained in his cell block who contracted Covid-19. He said they were all sent to a quarantine unit, some at the states supermax Northern Correctional Institution and some at the Whalley jail itself. Theyre not really using Northern anymore because its inhumane, he said.

Conditions need to be better, he said. The air conditioning needs to be on more. And they need to give us hand sanitizer.

He said that the medical care overall was sufficient at the jail. The majority of the nurses down there are spot on, he said. But, like anywhere, you always have a few that arent.

And he said that, after a little debacle of failure to keep Covid-symptomatic inmates separated from the rest of the population towards the beginning of the pandemic, the prison staff ultimately did a good job at moving Covid-positive people into a quarantine unit and only reintegrating them into the general population when they were no longer sick.

Things are supposed to be starting to change, he said about the prison taking more safety measures and releasing more inmates in response to the states settlement of a recent class action lawsuit with the ACLU regarding how best to protect older inmates and those with preexisting conditions who are most vulnerable to suffering adverse consequences from Covid.

But he wont get to see those firsthand, Ciccarelli said, because hes now a free man. His initial plan was to go home to North Haven, and then see if he can find someone to give him a ride so he can visit his late fathers burial spot in town.

According to state judicial records, Ciccarelli was arrested and detained in 2018 for possessing child pornography.

She called for the abolition of the existing prison system, the police, and even the public education system as it currently exists. They all systematically oppress Black people, she said, and need to be fundamentally reconfigured.

She said he describes the conditions there as horrible, and that she worries about him every day because he has asthma and is therefore uniquely vulnerable to suffering serious health consequences if he contracts Covid.

She said she feels buoyed by knowing that shes not alone in thinking about, worrying about, and advocating for her son while hes behind bars.

Something like this gives me hope, she said about Mondays protest.

He said he spent 12-and-a-half years locked up in Corrigan and MacDougall state prisons. And he said he still has friends who are behind bars in Connecticut.

Santiago said that, based on his experience and his friends experience, state prisons are not safe places to be during a pandemic. He said he showed up Monday to show his support for those still on the inside, and stand in solidarity with other prison reformers and abolitionists.

Their assessment, based on four months of conversations with people incarcerated in New Haven and throughout the state, is scathing. Click here to read their full report.

The stories we have heard from those inside Connecticuts cages describe an approach that is at best systematic negligence and at worst state-sanctioned murder, they wrote about the DOCs efforts to protect the states incarcerated population so far. In either case, it is a complete abdication of responsibility for the extrajudicial death sentences being meted out to the overwhelmingly Black, Brown, and poor peoples incarcerated in Connecticut.

The state is re-opening while the worst of the pandemic still rages inside its prisons and jails. And though prisons have walls, people do leave: Incarcerated people travel to, from, and through the carceral system, and staff return to their communities. In fact, the virus has only been able to enter these facilities because COs [correctional officers] and other DOC staff introduced it and because police continue to arrest and incarcerate community members, spreading sickness among those trapped inside.

They wrote that the hotline has received numerous reports of horrifying conditions from inmates inside of the Whalley jail.

According to the hotline volunteers, NHCC inmates were routinely denied tests and access to medical care despite showing symptoms of Covid-19 in March. They said that, for months, testing involved only temperature checks and not viral swabs or antibody tests.

COs, they said, were not required to wear masks. And by the time the NHCC started distributing masks made from prison uniforms which were so inadequate that people wrapped T-shirts around their faces instead in early April, six COs, a mail handler, and a nurse had already tested positive.

The hotline volunteers wrote that the NHCC responded to those positive staff tests by implementing a lockdown. They wrote that people were allowed outside their cells for only 40 minutes a day for recreation, phone calls, and showering.

NHCC unconscionably replaced part of the kitchen staff with COs, they wrote, people who travel to and from the facility daily but are still not required to get tested or screened.

The report quotes one inmate who continued working a shift on the kitchen staff as saying, In late March, early April, I went down Im a kitchen worker I went down to get my temperature taken before work, and my temperature was at 100.3 degrees. They cleared me to go to work for the day.

They also wrote that the jail experienced a slew of plumbing problems during lockdown, during which toilets began to spew sewage.

They said that cellmates received access to a single hotel-sized bar of soap per cell every two weeks.

Vents blew dirty air throughout the facility, rotten food was served, and the commissary was largely shut down, they wrote. People with asthmawere denied access to their inhalers, medication was withheld, and medical requests were routinely ignored.

The hotline volunteers wrote that DOC staff ignored or did not respond quickly in providing medical care for those who did display Covid-19 symptoms. On at least two occasions, they wrote, symptomatic prisoners had to wait until they could not walk or were coughing up blood to receive any acknowledgment of their illness from DOC.

They also laid into the DOC for its policy of sending Covid-sick inmates to the states super-maximum security prison, Northern, where they were placed in solitary confinement until their symptoms abated or they died.

They wrote that, as more people became sick, they became more and more terrified to report their illness out of a fear of being sent to Northern.

They said one caller told them, If you get sick and you go to Northern, youre gonna end up dying.

The hotline volunteers wrote that people with positive and negative test results, meanwhile, were placed together on the same block or in the same cell. New people brought into NHCC were immediately placed in the general population without any period of quarantine, they wrote. Healthy people successfully grouped together were crowded into a single block and forced to eat thirty at a time in confined quarters.

They wrote that the DOC conducted a facility-wide Covid-19 test in New Haven on June 2. They said this was a viral swab, and not an antibody test. Whatever data the DOC has collected about infection rates at NHCC are likely deflated and distorted, they wrote, and anyone who was sick in March, April or May will not show up as positive if they received only a viral swab.

While they wash their hands of the violence theyve overseen, the disastrous conditions persist at NHCC, they continued, and all calls weve received in June and July indicate that, despite facility-wide testing, little to nothing is being done to address the lethal situation inside.

The hotline volunteers wrote that, despite the state prison systems overall reduction in population during the pandemic, the population at NHCC rose in May from 603 to 681.

This cruelty cannot be overstated, they wrote, especially when the overwhelming majority of NHCCs population are Black, Brown, and poorpeople who experience conditions like asthma, high blood pressure, and diabetes at greater rates due to environmental racism and the violence of poverty.

The hotline volunteers conclude the report by listing the bail funds demands of the state. Those include: a 50 percent reduction of the states current incarcerated population by the end of 2020; an independent review of sentence modifications; an independent review of allegations of sexual and physical abuse against incarcerated people; a legal resource center in every facility; an end to the denial of parole, transitional supervision, halfway house eligibility, and other forms of release; the restoration of visits, weekly distribution of personal hygiene supplies; and functional disinfectant products; fines for any DOC staff not wearing masks; and medical care for incarcerated people released after contracting Covid-19 while behind state bars.

We know that all of these demands are steps along the road to the abolition of the prison industrial complex and the massive re-direction of resources into Black and Brown communities, they wrote. We need no less if we want truly healthy communities, now and beyond the pandemic.

This record of the violence inside NHCC exists because of the courage of incarcerated people and the people who love them. They are the ones speaking up on the phones and in the streets. They are the ones risking retaliation by CT DOC while enduring the everyday violence of incarceration. The family and friends of incarcerated people fear for the safety of their loved ones inside as much as they fear for the safety of their loved ones outside, struggling with illness, unemployment, and police brutality. The people who call us have dreams and desires to live healthy and free, to return and contribute to their communities. But they fear they will die of COVID-19 before they have the chance.

Below is a response from DOC Director of External Affairs Karen Martucci to Mondays protest and to the CT Bail Funds report on conditions at the Whalley jail.

When faced with challenges associated with COVID-19, the first responders from the Connecticut Department of Correction did an extraordinary job.

A preparedness plan was quickly established which included enhanced cleaning efforts, the separation of new intakes for 14 days, screening protocols for both the incarcerated population and employees, and the establishment of both quarantine and medical isolation units.

In addition to the safeguards put into place at the onset of the pandemic, the agency focused on the safe release of eligible offenders, while prioritizing offenders that were considered high risk if exposed to the virus based on CDC guidelines.

As a result of these efforts, Connecticut witnessed a significant drop in the incarcerated population which ranked the state as a national leader in these efforts. Since March, the agency has reduced the population by more than 2,500 people.

Allegations that offenders were not seen until they were vomiting blood and that the agency placed positive and negative cases in the same cell are not only false, they are insulting to the dedicated correctional professionals that answered the call to duty and reported to work day in and day out of the crisis.

We continue to collaborate with the Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ensure we are taking measures to best protect our selfless employees and the incarcerated population.

Below is a list of the 10 demands put forth by Bail Fund organizers during Mondays protest.

1) Initiate large-scale decarceration, coupled with public divestment from the prison industrial complex and reinvestment in Black communities. Social distancing is impossible in every facility in CT. Because of DOC negligence and abuse, thousands have been infected and many have even died. The state must create a comprehensive plan to immediately release at least 50% of its incarcerated population.

2) Establish a new body and a new process, independent of the Office of the States Attorney, to review Sentence Modifications and other similar motions. This body should be accountable to communities, not law enforcement. Presently, the same individuals who have imposed excessive sentences on our community members are the ones reviewing them.

3) Create a legal resource center in every facility. Due to the fact that the courts are severely backed up with cases, incarcerated people should have legal resources to help them understand their defense options and prepare their legal advocacy. Presently, no such resources exist, and the vast majority of prisoners have, in practice, no legal rights available to them through a court of law.

4) Restore visits. This can be accomplished in a safe way, especially with conducting visits in outside spaces and ensuring the ample availability of PPE.

5) DOC should ensure the provision of medical after-care for anyone who contracted COVID-19 while incarcerated.

6) Immediately stop denying people parole, Transitional Supervision, halfway house eligibility, and other forms of release from incarceration.

7) Provide personal hygiene supplies on a weekly basis to everyone incarcerated. Stop lying to the public about the provision of these supplies inside facilities.

8) Mandate that everyone incarcerated is able to clean their living area whenever they want. Presently, cleaning is not possible, and disinfectant supplies have been severely watered down to the point of uselessness.

9) Mandate that all DOC staff keep their masks on while in the facility. If they are found to be breaking this rule, they should be immediately sent home from their shift and fined.

10) DOC should have an independent body investigate all allegations of sexual and physical abuse against incarcerated people. The State of CT has yet to acknowledge the wide-spread brutality being visited upon its incarcerated residents.

Read more:

"Free Them All" Rally Targets Whalley Jail - New Haven Independent