Lawmakers hear calls for stronger oversight of inmate health care and PRIA protections

Representative Renee Lamar Mir urged the Government Oversight Committee to back two bills aimed at fixing systemic problems in the state’s correctional health-care system and at codifying stronger protections for incarcerated survivors of sexual abuse.

Mir told the committee that HB5474 “will help to address long‑standing deficiencies in providing health care to persons who are incarcerated in our state prisons and jails,” and argued those problems are not new but recurring across administrations.

The timing matters, witnesses said. Mir noted Connecticut’s incarcerated population has fallen to about 11,000 from a much higher peak, but corrections staffing levels and overtime costs have not fallen in step. “We don’t really know,” she said when asked whether staffing is still appropriate; she pressed for an independent staffing assessment rather than ad hoc hiring.

Health-care ombuds Amy Ze, a PhD‑trained registered nurse who represents the Office of the Correction Ombuds, told the committee HB5474 and HB5477 offer concrete tools to improve care and oversight. Ze recommended the Department of Correction seek national accreditation (for example, from the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare), adopt timestamped electronic sick‑call requests via tablets, and publish medication‑administration metrics that distinguish timesensitive drugs (insulin, etc.) from non‑timesensitive doses.

“We have an electronic tracking system,” Ze said, arguing the department already maintains medication administration records and can report delays and missed doses against nursing policy time windows. She recommended moving reporting deadlines earlier so audits and corrective actions can be acted on in a timely way.

Survivors and advocates pressed for PRIA protections to be codified in state law. Beth Hamilton of the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence and others urged lawmakers to preserve PRIA standards that had been rolled back at the federal level, expand access to confidential crisis hotlines and community‑based sexual assault advocacy, and require more transparent reporting so oversight bodies can detect trends and act.

Alex Brown, who described being sexually assaulted by a corrections officer while detained at York Correctional Institution, told lawmakers the proposed state hotline and reporting mechanisms must be truly confidential. “If DOC can listen to those calls, people will not use the hotline,” Brown said, urging the committee to prohibit monitoring or recording of any line intended for confidential reporting.

Department of Children and Families deputy commissioner Tina Jefferson and other agency witnesses supported a statewide task force on human trafficking and emphasized the need to fund multidisciplinary teams and child‑advocacy centers that handle complex trafficking cases. Love146 and the Center for Children’s Advocacy testified those teams are already overloaded and lack sustained state funding to deliver long‑term services.

Several witnesses—including former correctional staff, policy researchers and disability‑rights advocates—urged that any oversight system include independent audits, a clear timeline for accreditation, and a mechanism to require corrective actions and follow‑up reporting. Some asked that the state consider separate, resourced oversight outside the DOC for medical quality reviews rather than assigning investigative capacity to an ombuds office that focuses on individual complaints.

What’s next: Committee members said they will weigh amendments that clarify reporting, protect the confidentiality of survivors who report abuse, and define what an independent staffing assessment should look like. The bills remain under active review and may be revised before committee votes.