Guards fear arming inmates with their personnel files
By Christine McCluskey
Journal Inquirer
Published: Saturday, February 27, 2010 1:15 AM EST
HARTFORD — A few weeks after Correctional Officer James Gilbert ordered an inmate to leave an area where he shouldn’t have been in a Connecticut prison, the inmate requested the guard’s personnel file.
Shortly after that, the inmate threatened him, Gilbert told a legislative committee Friday. He said the inmate told him he would never know when the inmate would show up outside his door.
Referring to the slaying of Dr. William Petit’s family in Cheshire three years ago, Gilbert said, “My fear is that that could one day be us. That could be my wife and my daughter.”
Gilbert told that story at a hearing of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee on a proposal to bar inmates from getting access to the personnel files of correctional staff members by using the state Freedom of Information Act.
Supporters of the proposal at the hearing outnumbered opponents, who said it is unnecessary, could easily be circumvented, and would go against the public interest in transparency. The state Freedom of Information Commission submitted written testimony opposing the bill.
Correction Department officials and prison employees said the number of prisoner requests for information about correctional officers has increased greatly over the past few years.
“It is becoming part of the inmate culture,” said Brian K. Murphy, the department’s acting commissioner.
“Harassment and retaliation, that’s all it is,” added Correctional Officer Dave Caron.
Murphy said the department spent a little over $1 million in 2009 responding 14 to freedom-of-information requests from inmates.
He said it has cost the department $10,000 to oppose the FOI Commission on one personnel-file case.
Murphy said there are ways other than requesting personnel files that prisoners can make complaints or draw attention to an issue with an employee.
Also testifying in favor of the bill was Jon T. Pepe, president of AFSCME Local 391, representing employees at prisons in Enfield, Suffield, and Somers.
Pepe said prisoners are already exchanging information about correctional officers that they get in ways other than freedom-of-information requests. “It’s almost like a commodity,” he said.
Even if Correction Department employees black out sensitive information in personnel files before giving them to prisoners, Pepe said, some sensitive information might accidentally be missed.
Joseph Vecchitto, the union’s vice president, said an officer who knows an inmate has personal information about him might be intimidated into thinking twice about how thoroughly to search that inmate’s cell for contraband.
But Claude Albert, legislative chairman for the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information, a media group, said much of the personal information that correctional officers expressed concern about, such as addresses and family members’ names, “already is not releasable” under the law.
Prisoners should have the opportunity to go before the FOI Commission to get other information in the files that could be of public value, though, Albert said.
“It makes sense to have some second opinion on the Correction Department’s assertion” that information can’t be released to preserve security, he said.
In its written testimony, the FOI Commission argued, “There are problems within correctional institutions that only inmates know and can bring to light, highlighting the need for at least some of these kinds of records to be made available.”
For example, one pending court case involves allegations of health and safety violations by employees, the commission wrote.
Judiciary Committee members mostly seemed to agree with the arguments of the Correction Department and its employees.
“Corrections 101 is you do not divulge your personal information,” said Rep. Matthew J. Conway, D-Suffield, who worked as an educator in prisons for 20 years. He said some inmates “do hold grudges.”
Sen. John A. Kissel, R-Enfield, said he supports the bill and is “very hopeful” it will become law this year. Eleven states already have similar laws, Kissel said.
Sen. Andrew J. McDonald, D-Stamford, a co-chairman of the committee, asked Pepe what would prevent someone outside a prison from obtaining a correctional officer’s personnel file and communicating the contents to a prisoner.
“Nothing,” Pepe said. “It just takes effort, and that’s lacking.”
Copyright © 2010 – Journal Inquirer
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