In The Life Of A Connecticut Prisoner Vol. 2 No. 1
By Richard Stevenson

GREETINGS FREE WORLD! This is my first post of the year. Sorry it took so long but that's prison life here in Connecticut. On Friday, 2-6-16 WTNH Channel 8 News aired a story I had previously exposed back in 2009 I'd like to reiterate.

In 2009 I had a Freedom of Information Commission hearing in an attempt to obtain the arrest records of all Dept. of Correction employees because they refused to hand them over in accordance with the law in their effort to prevent me from exposing corruption in the DOC. Re Conn. Freedom of Information Commission Docket #2009-020. In short, I caught them lying about possession of the records, they refused to turn them over to the FOIC. The FOIC ruled in my favor, DOC appealed to Conn. Superior Court. The court delayed its ruling until the DOC could get a state Senator to have the Legislature amend the law to preclude prisoners from obtaining the very records I was trying to get hold of. After doing so the judge ruled against me (our taxes hard at work).

As well all know this is supposed to be a system of checks and balances. The judge's ruling took away one of the most important checks. The 4 year period of records I requested resulted in 125 cases being found. In the latest story by Channel 8 News reporter D.I., the result was 300 cases coming to light. See what happens when a rogue faction of our government gets its way?

My only issue with the story is that no names were exposed with the cases. I believe that the result will be no one gets fired. Since they prevented me and any other prisoner from obtaining these records directly from the government under the Freedom of Information Act this issue will only get worse. So will the abuse because they believe that we can't expose them. However, the legislature didn't give them everything they wanted with regards to this law. Anyone else can send us this information without penalty. We can also obtain these very same records under the rules of discovery if we were to file a law suit...

(1)

...against the DOC for jeopardizing the safety and security of the facility, staff and prisoners. The crazy thing is that if a member of my immediate family is simply charged with a minor misdemeanor DOC would prevent them from visiting me. If you won a contract to supply toilet paper to the prisons and were convicted of Disturbing the Peace you could not deliver anything to the prisons. Yet, if you were convicted of selling drugs after you became a C/O you would likely be able to keep your job here. In addition, the courts would likely help you out so that you wouldn't have to serve more than 5 days in jail thereby allowing you to keep your job.

It should also be noted that there are a number of C/Os who are very upset about this. They believe that it is hypocritical for the DOC to allow these people to continue to work at the prisons. But they won't do anything about it because they fear retaliation.

If you'd like to help me expose some of the corruption in DOC go to wtnh.com. I believe that this is where you can find a link to the news story I referred to. Somewhere you will find a list of the names and charges that DOC employees were convicted of. Please send me what you can. It doesn't matter if its the entire list or a partial listing. But I'd like as many names as possible. This could be very helpful when these people write up false disciplinary reports or otherwise abuse their authority that would get people denied parole costing us, our families and you the tax payer millions per year. I could then use this list to force DOC to fire these abusers.

On behalf of all of us and our families thank you for any assistance you can give me.

Anyone can also write me directly at:

Richard Stevenson 156074
Cheshire C.I.
900 Highland Ave.
Cheshire, CT 06410

Thanks again for your help,
Rich.

(2)