In December 2025, Disability Rights Connecticut published an investigation into conditions at York Correctional Institution — Connecticut's only facility for women — that documented sexual assault by correction officers, systemic safety failures, and a multi-year failure to install security cameras that staff had explicitly requested to protect incarcerated women from abuse. The investigation was cited in the Connecticut Office of the Correction Ombudsman's January 2026 report as evidence of "sexual assault and systemic safety failures" at the facility.
York CI is located in Niantic, Connecticut. It is the sole facility in the CT DOC system that houses adult women, meaning that every woman serving a state prison sentence in Connecticut — regardless of security classification — is housed at York. This concentration makes safety failures at the facility affect a uniquely captive and vulnerable population.
Cameras Requested Since 2016, Still Not Installed
One of the most troubling findings in the Disability Rights Connecticut report concerned surveillance cameras. According to the investigation, York CI wardens had been requesting installation of cameras in the facility's laundry room as far back as 2016. The laundry room was identified as a location where sexual misconduct was occurring or could occur without witness or documentation.
In 2023 — seven years after the initial request — a DOC contractor conducted a security assessment of York and recommended replacing 10 existing cameras and installing 63 additional cameras throughout the facility. As of the December 2025 report, those cameras had not been installed. The failure to act on multiple years of requests from wardens within the DOC's own management structure is a central finding of the investigation.
Sexual Misconduct by Staff
The Disability Rights Connecticut report documented specific cases of sexual misconduct by correction officers against incarcerated women at York. Under federal law — specifically the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), enacted in 2003 — any sexual contact between correctional staff and incarcerated people is illegal, regardless of whether the incarcerated person appears to consent. Consent is legally impossible in a correctional setting because of the power differential.
PREA requires all correctional facilities to have written policies prohibiting sexual abuse, an anonymous reporting system for incarcerated people to report misconduct, investigation procedures, and staff training. The investigation found that despite these legal requirements, the protective infrastructure at York was not functioning as intended.
Impact on Women with Disabilities
Disability Rights Connecticut — a nonprofit organization whose mandate under federal law is to protect the rights of people with disabilities — focused particular attention on how women with cognitive and psychiatric disabilities at York were affected by the safety failures. People with disabilities are statistically at higher risk of sexual victimization in institutional settings, and their complaints may be less likely to be credited by staff.
The investigation found that the systemic safety failures disproportionately affected this population — not because disabled women were specifically targeted, but because the absence of cameras, credible reporting mechanisms, and accountability created conditions that exploited the relative powerlessness of women who had the fewest resources to advocate for themselves.
What Families Can Do
If you have a loved one at York Correctional Institution and have concerns about their safety:
- Document everything. Encourage your loved one to write down dates, times, officer names, and specific descriptions of any incidents as soon as possible after they occur. Written records are essential for any subsequent investigation.
- Contact the PREA Coordinator. Every CT DOC facility has a designated PREA Coordinator. Reports can be made directly to this coordinator, who is required to initiate an investigation.
- Contact Disability Rights Connecticut at disabilityrightsCT.org — they accept inquiries about conditions at York and have experience investigating misconduct at the facility.
- Contact the CT Office of the Correction Ombudsman, which accepts family complaints and can escalate concerns to the DOC's leadership or the legislature.
- Contact an attorney. Sexual misconduct by a correctional officer is a crime under Connecticut and federal law. A civil rights attorney can advise on potential claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and other legal frameworks.
CT DOC's Statutory Obligations
The CT DOC is legally required under PREA to maintain a safe environment free from sexual abuse. The DOC is also required under the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act to provide equal protection to incarcerated people with disabilities. The systematic failure to install cameras — despite years of internal requests and a formal contractor recommendation — raises serious questions about whether the DOC met these obligations during the period covered by the investigation.
The OCO's January 2026 report called for legislative oversight of the DOC, specifically citing the York findings as evidence that the department's internal accountability mechanisms are not functioning. The report recommended that the Connecticut legislature conduct its own review of DOC conditions, including conditions at York.