Pubdate: Sun, 03 Mar 2002 Source: New Haven Register (CT) Copyright: 2002, New Haven Register Contact: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1281 Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/292 Author: William Kaempffer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) STATE'S PRISON BOSS FACES HIS BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN 25 YEARS WETHERSFIELD - Department of Correction Commissioner John J. Armstrong has witnessed plenty of wars during the 25 years he's spent working in the state prison system. There was the war on drugs that began in the 1980s, in which he saw thousands of addicts ushered into prison. During the war on gangs in 1990s, law enforcement dismantled some of the most violent drug gangs in Connecticut and jailed their leaders. There was the war of public opinion, when politicians enacted tough- on-crime legislation that imposed longer prison terms and truth-in- sentencing guidelines. And most recently, the prison system felt the impact of the war on terror, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Naturalization Service detained and jailed hundreds of people in Connecticut alone. Reflecting on his career and what lies ahead, Armstrong said last week that prison overcrowding is his primary challenge. The variety of wars rocketed prison populations to record levels in the last decade. "We're well beyond design capacity and we have been for years," said Armstrong, DOC commissioner since 1995. The simple solution would be to build more cells and the department currently is expanding by more than 1,000 beds. But Armstrong said it would be imprudent to engage in a massive expansion since the prison population, which has increased every year since 1994, inevitably will peak and begin to recede. The challenge, he said, is to reach an equilibrium. "We don't want to overbuild our system," said Armstrong. According to those who have worked with him, the 46-year-old chief of corrections is not one to shy away from a challenge. Rep. Michael Lawlor (D-East Haven) said Armstrong is a leader who makes hard decisions and then stands behind them, with a unique ability to cut through personal agendas and build consensus. "Armstrong is able to resolve things without getting in a brawl," he said. While Lawlor acknowledged he doesn't agree with all of those decisions - most notably the 1999 transfer of prisoners to Virginia - he said Armstrong has never strayed from his commitment or professionalism."I hold him in very high esteem," Lawlor said. "I think if everybody in the system had a very sensible and open minded approached like he does, then I think we would have a much better criminal justice system." Born in New Haven, Armstrong spent most of his life in West Haven. He still lives there with his wife, Beth. He has a son and daughter in college. Armstrong joined the DOC on Jan. 17, 1977 after graduating from the University of New Haven with a degree in criminal justice and law enforcement administration. He's an adjunct instructor at UNH. He started as a correction officer at the New Haven Correctional Center, at 245 Whalley Ave. From there, he rose through the ranks. In 1989, he was named warden of the Jennings Road Detention Center in Hartford, and in 1990, the warden of Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire. By 1994, he was deputy commissioner and in 1995 took the helm as commissioner. During his 25 years, he watched the department grow from about 3,500 prisoners and nine institutions to nearly 20,000 inmates, 7,200 employees, 18 facilities and an annual budget of more than $500 million. When he started, "it probably was a much simpler, straight-forward business," Armstrong said. Distinctions like "mental health population" and "special-need offenders" had yet to be identified. Many of the rehabilitative programs were just being formulated, the "best of which" remain in place today, Armstrong said. One of the largest changes, he said, has been opening the inner- workings to the public. Most people have a strong opinion on what should happen to people who go to prison, he said, and that perception isn't always based on reality. "Most people base their opinion on a Hollywood perception." "Most people think when you go to prison you either sit in your cell all day or bang out license plates." Actually, some prisoners do manufacture license plates. But prisoners also operate a furniture-making facility and one of the department's cafeterias. In recent years, corrections has worked to be more open, Armstrong said. The department sponsors public tours of facilities and adopted an open door policy with crime victims, he said. "We spend an awful lot of tax dollars," he said. "I want people to understand what we do. We used to have a fortress mentality that we did not disclose information, we didn't share information." He also has seen the pendulum of public opinion on the role of prisons swing several times - from rehabilitation to punitive and back again. Throughout, he said, he tried to support programs that give offenders the best chance of staying clean on the outside - job training, drug rehabilitation, anger management. Yet he's taken a no-nonsense approach when it comes to discipline, dealing decisively with jailhouse disturbances. He fostered a program that isolated gang members from the general population and worked to share criminal intelligence with other law enforcement agencies. Gang members are locked down under "Spartan conditions" and rivals are often housed together under close supervision. That enables them to "bottom out" and work their way back into general population. "It's allowed us to go from thousands of gang members to a few hundred," he said, adding, "This is not a warehouse program." To that end, he proposed legislation as the chairman of the Prison and Jail Overcrowding Commission to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing that placed drug offenders in jail for years. Now, judges regained their discretion in sentencing these non-violent criminals, which can help thin prison populations. "I think we're on a better educated perspective right now," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh