Yesterday Connecticut Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal announced that the Federal Correctional Institution, a low-security prison located in Danbury, CT will continue to house female inmates from the Northeast. In July the FBOP announced a plan to remove all female inmates from the FCI to make room for male inmates. FCI-Danbury originally was a male facility until 1993, when, acting on the need for a female prison in the region, the BOP converted FCI-Danbury to a facility for women.
FCI-Danbury is the only low-security facility for women in the Northeast. Federal Prison Camp-Danbury will continue to hold minimum-security female inmates. The FPC was not scheduled to convert to a male prison camp under the new plans.
It was previously announced that the Danbury FCI would transfer the women to Aliceville, Alabama and other low-security federal institutions for females located in California, Minnesota, Florida, West Virginia, and Arizona. Aliceville is 1,110 miles away from Danbury.
Reentry Central first broke the story nationally on July 5, 2013 that the transfers were about to take place. Eleven U.S. Senators and at least two federal judges questioned the move, as FCI-Danbury is the only low-security prison for women in the Northeast. A press conference organized by Connecticut criminal justice reform activist Barbara Fair on October 15, at the federal courthouse in New Haven, CT, drew faith-based organizations and prisoners’ rights advocates who opposed the pending transfer that would further isolate the prisoners at Danbury-FCI from their children and other family members.
The announcement of the decision to keep females from the Northeast reports that male inmates will still be sent to Danbury but will be kept separate from the females.
Read Connecticut Mirror reporter Ana Radelat’s updated information.
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