Cloe Poisson / CTMirror.org
When her son Michael told her in June that he was being transferred to the Osborn Correctional Institution from a prison in Newtown, Dorothea Ferrigon thought his two-year ordeal was almost over.
Osborn’s location in Somers was much closer to the family’s Bloomfield home, which meant it would be easier to visit him. Even better, he’d been placed on a waiting list for a halfway house that would likely be in the Hartford area. His release, it appeared, was imminent.
But then COVID struck the prisons, the state Department of Correction halted visitations, and the family worried about “Big Mike,” who had both diabetes and asthma.
Published December 18. 2020 8:27PM | Updated December 18. 2020 10:11PM
Kelan Lyons, The Connecticut Mirror
A 47-year-old incarcerated man died from COVID-19 on Thursday, the 11th inmate to die from the virus since the onset of the pandemic.
The Department of Correction announced the death in a news release Friday night but did not release his name, citing medical privacy laws. The department did say, however, that he d been serving a 2½-year sentence on a sale of narcotics charge and had been approved for a reentry furlough prior to his death, meaning his release may have been imminent.
The man had been transferred to a hospital from the DOC s medical isolation unit at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution on Nov. 28.
Eleventh incarcerated person dies from COVID-19
A 47-year-old incarcerated man died from COVID-19 on Thursday, the 11th inmate to die from the virus since the onset of the pandemic.
The Department of Correction announced the death in a press release Friday night but did not release his name, citing medical privacy laws. The department did say, however, that he’d been serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence on a sale of narcotics charge and had been approved for a reentry furlough prior to his death, meaning his release may have been imminent.
The man had been transferred to a hospital from the DOC’s medical isolation unit at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution on Nov. 28.
Panel monitoring response to COVID pandemic finds most people in prisons and jails are wearing masks
Cloe Poisson :: CT Mirror.org
A sign was taped to a car window calling for the freeing of prisoners at York Correctional Institution in Niantic, Monday, April 13, 2020, during a car protest by community organizers and prison advocates in a park next the women’s prison. They were calling for the release of prisoners who are at risk on infection from the Covid-19 virus.
During four visits to prisons and jails in October and November, a five-member monitoring panel formed as a result of the ACLU of Connecticut’s class action lawsuit on COVID-19 in correctional facilities found that most incarcerated people and staff were wearing masks.