Lamont, lawmakers call for changes to CT prison debt law

Following the publication of a Connecticut Mirror investigation into a Connecticut law that allows the state to assess a daily charge to incarcerated people and collect on that debt for up to 20 years after the person is released, Gov. Ned Lamont and legislative leaders from both political parties said Wednesday they want to use the 2027 legislative session to change the law.

The law, originally passed in 1995, allows the state to calculate the daily cost of incarceration then take that money from current or former inmates who receive inheritances, lottery winnings or certain lawsuit settlements.

The CT Mirror investigation found that Connecticut has one of the highest daily costs in the country; in recent years, the cost has been as much as $347 per day.

Many people don’t know they’re going to be charged for the cost of their incarceration, and when they are, they sometimes lose housing, opportunities to build businesses or the chance to pass money along to their children.

Lamont said state officials are exploring what changes could be made administratively to ease the burden on people, and he said he will support legislative change in 2027.

“Maybe if it’s Gordon Gekko or some Wall Street titan, yeah, I think they should contribute to the cost of their incarceration. But I think for the other 90% of people, I want to make sure when they’ve served their time, they get back out, they’re not stuck with an incredible burden that is impossible for them to pay off,” Lamont said Wednesday.

Lamont and some lawmakers said they hadn’t heard of the issue previously and didn’t recall debate from past sessions. Democratic and Republican leaders said they weren’t sure whether a full repeal of the law or other changes would be the best approach.

Lawmakers did consider a repeal in 2022, but the measure didn’t make it out of committee. Instead, they opted to exempt some cases in which individuals receive lawsuit settlements, except when the person was found guilty of certain murder or sexual assault charges.

Advocates from Yale University, the ACLU and elsewhere have taken on the issue. Da’ee McKnight said he and Fred Hodges, both of whom work for Family Reentry/Community Resource for Justice, have been pushing the Judiciary Committee for a full repeal.

Judiciary Committee co-Chair Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, said he’d like to see the repeal from 2022 brought back for consideration next session. Facing opposition, he and others who supported the 2022 repeal effort had settled for the lawsuit compromise, he said.

Merely changing the law — creating exceptions for the rare instances in which someone has enough money to cover the cost of incarceration without destabilizing themselves financially — could get complicated, said House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford.

“We know, more often than not, people are exiting the correction system into a financially precarious situation,” Rojas said. “To have a policy that adds to that just seems really inconsistent with how we’ve been thinking about criminal justice for as long as I’ve been in the legislature.”

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said he doesn’t think the current policy makes sense because it’s not clear the state is actually making money — particularly after accounting for what’s spent on social services and the cost of collecting the debt.

“I do think that it should have a broader look. Is it being fairly applied? Is it creating barriers to reentry?” Candelora said. He added that he’d be open to a repeal.

Other lawmakers were hesitant to support a repeal but said there should be significant changes.

House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said there could be a homestead exemption or a mechanism that ensures people don’t lose their housing. He said people who rebuild their lives shouldn’t have that taken away after incarceration.

“What if you have a very wealthy person who goes to jail for six years with incredible means? Would it be fair to go after that person? Well, you might argue yes, right?” Ritter said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said he also thinks there should be some kind of homestead exemption to the law and more opportunity for the courts to intervene. The state should have to individually make cases to collect the money rather than automatically applying liens. Then, the court could determine whether the person has the means to pay, Looney said.

Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, said the law will “likely be reexamined next session to see whether it merits further revisions.”

“Just on a very human level, it’s really hard as a policymaker to know that decisions that we make impact people in the way that they’re impacting people,” Rojas said.

CT Mirror reporter Andrew Brown contributed to this story.