A four-year investigation into sexual abuse at York Correctional Institution found that the Department of Correction failed to protect women in custody with mental illness from sexual abuse by correction officers, and was slow to review whether changes in security or policy could prevent further abuse.
Disability Rights Connecticut, the organization that published the report, began investigating the facility in November 2021, after receiving and investigating multiple complaints.
“DRCT received additional information while investigating the complaints which gave rise to the reasonable belief of probable cause that multiple women with mental illness had been sexually abused,” the report said. “As a result, DRCT expanded its investigation into systemic allegations of sexual abuse for individuals with mental illness at YCI.” The investigation concluded last month.
Since 2021, six correction officers have been either charged with or convicted of sexual assault. Two more resigned after being investigated by the Connecticut State Police but were never charged. Another was fired by the Department of Correction in 2021.
Three additional officers are currently under investigation for sexual abuse. Two are banned from having contact with inmates and one is restricted to a specifica area.
According to the report, DOC knew of multiple areas of the prison that were not covered by security cameras, which could have made it possible for correction officers to assault female prisoners without being seen.
In one case, an unnamed incarcerated woman was assaulted by an officer in the laundry room at York multiple times. She said the officer told her that he loved her, and she believed they were in a relationship. The Department of Correction’s own investigation into the allegations — which is ongoing — found that wardens had been asking for cameras in the laundry room as far back as 2016, in response to earlier investigations into sexual assaults by correction officers in the same area.
When the officer, who is still under investigation, was confronted, he pointed to the fact that there were no cameras in the laundry room, saying that “it was his word against that of [the unnamed woman],” according to DOC’s investigation and the DRCT report.
In 2023, a DOC contractor recommended replacing 10 cameras and installing 63 additional cameras at York. Those cameras have yet to be installed. Since the company made the recommendation, only two cameras have been added and one was replaced, according to the Disability Rights CT report.
Correction Ombuds DeVaughn Ward said in a statement that he’d heard concerns about camera coverage and blind spots from both department staff and incarcerated people, and that the lapses “continue to present significant safety and accountability concerns.”
The report also noted that many of the alleged assaults took place during the overnight shift, when there were fewer officers on duty.
The report criticized the department for delays in completing sexual abuse incident reviews — documents that produce recommendations for how DOC might modify its policies or enhance security to prevent future sexual abuse. According to the report, there were no incident reviews produced in five of the seven allegations that the organization reviewed that were substantiated.
None of the incident reviews for the seven substantiated cases included a recommendation that victims receive mental health treatment from providers experienced in treating victims of sexual abuse — despite this being included in both the department’s policy and the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, which passed in 2003.
One of the cases included in DRCT’s report was that of Lashanda Gregory, who filed a claim for $2.5 million with the state claims commissioner in June 2023 alleging that she had been sexually assaulted by two correction officers in 2022. She was granted permission to sue the state.
Gregory’s lawyer, Alexander Taubes, alleged in a letter to Attorney General William Tong in November that Tong’s office had engaged in a pattern of “victim-blaming” toward Gregory after Assistant Attorney General Matthew Beizer, in an email to Taubes, said Gregory was “the instigator/willing participant in the incidents” of sexual assault, making her “contributorily negligent.”
The DRCT report said one of the incidents involving Gregory likely took place in a mop closet, another blind spot out of sight of the cameras that DOC had flagged in its own reports. It also said Gregory never received mental health services from experts who had training in working with victims of sexual assault.
Taubes told the Connecticut Mirror in a text message that the report’s findings about Gregory — including the lack of mental health treatment she received and the fact the department didn’t complete a sexual abuse incident review in her case — revealed systemic failures.
“This report demands more than damage control. It demands accountability, independent oversight, and an honest reckoning with how women in state custody were treated — and how their abuse was minimized when it mattered most,” Taubes said.
In three cases outlined in DRCT’s report, the Department of Corrections hadn’t conducted its own investigations. In one case, a woman reported in 2023 that she had been raped by two correction officers in 2014. Both officers had already left the department — one was arrested for sexual assault and one resigned over sexual misconduct, DRCT found.
In another case, a woman alleged being raped by two correction officers and claimed that one of them was the father of her child. The officer was still working in the department — he was stationed at Manson Youth Institution — but DOC hadn’t interviewed him or tried to verify that he was the child’s father, according to DRCT.
In a third case, an unnamed formerly incarcerated woman told a sexual abuse crisis counselor that an officer made “sexually suggestive comments” to her, tried to remove her clothes, and at one point forced her to touch him sexually while she was incarcerated from 2010 to 2014.
“When asked why she did not tell [the officer] to stop these behaviors or report them to staff, [the woman] stated she laughed it off because these behaviors were part of the DOC culture,” the report read.
When the woman made the allegation, in July 2022, the officer was on leave for worker’s compensation. He retired a few months later. According to the report, the officer was never interviewed, the investigation by the department was not completed, and nothing was done to remedy what had occurred.
According to federal regulations, an agency is not authorized to end an investigation simply because the employee in question no longer works there, or the incarcerated individual in question has been released.
Department of Correction spokesperson Andrius Banevicius said in a statement that the department “has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual assault / sexual harassment of any individual under its supervision.”
“The agency’s Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Unit thoroughly and objectively investigates allegations of sexual abuse in accordance with Federal standards,” Banevicius said. “If allegations are substantiated, violators are subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment and/or criminal prosecution.”
Ward, the correction ombuds, also said in his statement that he found the report’s findings “deeply concerning,” adding that they “underscore serious breakdowns in the Department of Correction’s duty to protect incarcerated women from harm.”
Disability Rights CT recommended that the department provide quarterly reports to the office of the correction ombuds listing any allegations of sexual abuse or harassment, and additional reports listing the status of any investigations into sexual abuse or harassment.
Ward told CT Mirror he supported this recommendation.
The organization also called on state lawmakers to make it possible for any DOC employee to be charged with sexual assault in the second or fourth degree. The law currently restricts this to employees who have “supervisory or disciplinary authority over prisoners.” DRCT also recommended raising the penalty for second-degree sexual assault from nine months to two years.
Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, the highest ranking Republican on the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that he planned to meet with the department’s leadership to discuss the report and make sure that changes were taking place to prevent further abuses.
“One of the utmost priorities of the Department needs to be ensuring the safety and wellness of all those within our facilities — incarcerated persons, DOC staff, and visitors,” Kissel said.
Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, said that before submitting legislation to increase penalties, he wanted to look into whether the current penalties for sexual assault were being enforced.
The state has a duty to protect people it’s holding in custody, he said, adding that he believes DOC must “get its act together” and address the sexual abuse that is occurring, along with the legislature.
“ At the end of the day, the clear direction forward here is to pull our heads out of the sand and figure out what we’re not doing right and get it done,” he said.
This story was originally published in the Connecticut Mirror.
