Lisa Velasquez-Torres in the Hill in mid-March. Credit: Dereen Shirnekhi file photo Lisa Velasquez-Torres listens every day as her brother Luis Velasquez describes mice, mold, unclean water, and electric blackouts during his calls from Osborn Correctional Institution, where he’s serving a five -year sentence. Velasquez-Torres — a longtime Hill resident and recently elected Ward 3 Democratic co-chaor — has been advocating for better conditions for her brother and other men who are incarcerated at Osborn. Detainees, advocates, and the state’s independent prison-system ombudsman have described that facility — located in Somers — as possibly nearing the end of its lifespan as an institution. The prison currently holds nearly 1,200 incarcerated men. “These are people being punished for what they did,” Velasquez-Torres told the Independent, “but this doesn’t mean they are animals that you can neglect. They’re still human beings.” Velasquez-Torres has now embarked on a quest along with veteran prison-watchers in Connecticut to expose the conditions in a failing prison. Meanwhile, prison conditions in Connecticut have been in the spotlight after 45-year-old New Havener Craig Whyte died after a corrections officer found him unresponsive in his cell at Osborn on Sunday. Whyte was the ninth incarcerated person in Connecticut to die so far this year, according to the CT Post. Gov. Ned Lamont also recently announced that the state’s embattled Department of Correction (DOC) commissioner plans to step down from his role in May amid growing concerns with the state’s prison system. Luis Velasquez, who is 43 years old, has been in prison for two years on charges of manslaughter and assault with extreme indifference to life following a fatal car crash on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard. He has been at Osborn for the last three months, after serving time at the Whalley Avenue Correctional Center and MacDougal-Walker in Suffield. “Osborn is the worst one,” Velasquez-Torres said. She said that her brother’s health has deteriorated since he’s arrived at Osborn. In addition to his diabetes, her brother has high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and asthma. He has trouble getting around because of his hip injury. His sister wants him to be relocated to a place where she and her family can take care of him. In her daily calls with her brother, Velasquez-Torres said she listens to him describe his trouble getting medical care at Osborn, which has an inpatient medical hospital. He has to pay $3 to request care. Then, it may take months to be seen. Velasquez-Torres said that her brother doesn’t consistently receive his medications on time, and that he doesn’t sleep with a CPAP machine for his sleep apnea. She said Luis has also described mice, including dead ones that haven’t been disposed of in the cafeteria, and mold, unclean water, and electricity outages multiple times per week. “I’m afraid,” she said. “My brother’s a diabetic — what if he gets bitten by a mouse?” What if that bite becomes infected, if he needs something amputated, if he dies? “His health is deteriorating in there,” she said. “I know they’re there because they made a mistake, but they’re still human.” She wants her brother to be released and confined to house arrest or returned to Advanced Rehab in the Hill, where she and her family can take care of him. She feels that the two years that he has spent incarcerated, coupled with his poor health, are enough. “I’m Scared For My Brother” Mouse observed in the dining area of Osborn, as seen in ombuds’ report. Luis grew up in the Hill with Velasquez-Torres. As his big sister, 17 years older than him, she said she practically raised him. Part of a close family, their parents were farmers, picking tomatoes and apples, and they worked a lot. Velasquez-Torres described her brother as a hard worker. “He always had two jobs, his own apartment, his own cars,” she said. When the Covid-19 pandemic began, Luis — a diabetic with underlying health conditions — became sick with Covid twice and never fully recovered. Also a father, Luis lost his apartment, his job, and ended up homeless. “He’s always been independent. He didn’t know how to be without a job,” she said. “He didn’t want to depend on his sisters.” Luis ended up at a shelter in the Hill that would help him find a job and an apartment. Velasquez-Torres said that he had to be at the shelter by 7 p.m. every day. She said her brother was trying to find a job. On a day in late May 2023, he had gone out for a haircut, grabbed something to eat, and was rushing to the shelter, according to his sister, when he caused a three-car crash, near Ella T Grasso Boulevard and Washington Avenue. According to a contemporaneous police press release, the crash was at 7:34 p.m. One driver died; her name was Jazy White and she was 42 years old. Four others were injured. White was a mother of two teenaged children and a manager at Dunkin’ in Hamden. Luis was in a coma for a week after the crash, according to his sister. He required surgery on his arm and head after the crash, had broken ten of his ribs, and injured his hip. He was sent to Advanced Rehab to recover. Nearly a year later, in May 2024, New Haven police arrested Luis on two counts of assault with extreme indifference to life in the first degree and one count of manslaughter in the first degree. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ten years in jail, suspended after 58 months followed by five years probation. Velasquez-Torres has been advocating for her brother at the state-level. Earlier this month, she visited Hartford to introduce herself to members of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee and ask them to support her brother. She connected with New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield, who serves as co-chair of the Judiciary Committee. He’s also a member of the state legislature’s Correction Advisory Committee. “Her brother’s situation is reflective of many other situations I’ve had to intervene, or at least try to intervene, in,” said Winfield. Winfield connected Velasquez-Torries with and spoke to DeVaughn Ward, a civil rights attorney who was appointed and approved as the state’s DOC ombudsman in March 2025. Ward’s office independently oversees the state’s prison system and investigates complaints. Ward, who visits Osborn and other prisons in the state, corroborated Velasquez’s description. “There are mice, there is mold, there’s dirty water, there’s blackouts, and there is trouble accessing medical care,” Ward said. Ward visited Osborn earlier this week. He met with Velasquez-Torres’ brother, though he declined to comment on what they spoke about or the state of his health. Ward said he wasn’t in a position to say whether Luis should be transferred to another facility or not. “Where someone’s housed is a combination of their medical needs score, their mental health score, their escape score, a number of different assessments that [the DOC] does,” he explained. DOC Public Information Officer Andrius Banevicius declined to comment on the state of Velasquez’s medical care, due to HIPAA regulations. “Suffice it to say, the members of the department’s Health Services Unit strive to provide quality health care to the more than 10,000 individuals under the department’s care,” he told the Independent. “The agency’s Human Resources Unit is aggressively recruiting additional health services staff in the face of a nationwide shortage of health care professionals.” “The water at the facility is tested (by an outside entity) on a regular basis for contaminants, and is consistently found to be within acceptable health standards,” Banevicius continued. “Also, a pest control contractor comes to Osborn on a regular basis.” On Thursday, Velasquez-Torres told the Independent she received word that medical staff told her brother that he would need surgery for the pain in his hips. He also has a hernia and a swollen toe from an ingrown nail. She thinks the surgery is because Luis hadn’t had enough time to fully recover during his rehab at Advanced before being taken to prison. “He was still using a walker,” she said, “going to therapy.” Luis declined to speak directly to the Independent after learning of the upcoming surgery, worried about possible retaliation. “I’m scared for my brother,” Velasquez-Torres said. “I want him out.” “Sustained Institutional Failure” Barbara Fair at an August 2025 Stop Solitary CT panel. Credit: Laura Glesby file photo Meanwhile, as Velasquez-Torres continues to advocate on behalf of her brother at Osborn, local criminal justice reform activist and Stop Solitary CT Director Barbara Fair called for the facility to be shut down while testifying before the state legislature. “Osborn needs to be shut down for numerous environmental reasons,” Fair said at a public hearing held by the Government Oversight Committee on March 10. “This antiquated facility can no longer serve as housing, and so the resolve must be to shut it down and relocate the population to one of the unused facilities.” “Although the Osborn facility is more than 60 years old,” Banevicius told the Independent, “the staff of the Department of Correction’s Facilities Management and Engineering Unit work tirelessly to maintain and make repairs to the facility.” Ward’s office released in January its first annual Conditions of Confinement report, spanning from Sept. 1, 2024, through Dec. 31, 2025. The report states that Ward’s office, which only consisted of Ward during the review, was constrained in the number and depth of investigations that could be conducted simultaneously. Still, the report is clear: “Connecticut’s correctional system is operating in a state of sustained institutional failure. Staffing collapse has become normalized. Lockdowns have replaced reliable service delivery. Health care, sanitation, food, legal access, and communication remain inconsistent. Governance failures persist despite repeated warnings.” The report includes multiple complaints regarding Osborn. “It’s aging,” Ward said to the Independent about the facility. “I think you could certainly make the argument it may at the end of its useful life. That’s something I’m discussing with the governor and DOC leadership. I’d like to see a statewide facility assessment to look at whether we can close Osborn, because of some of the issues that are going on there.” Ward also suggested that the men incarcerated at Osborn could move to correctional facilities that are no longer in use but could be retrofitted — like Bergen, Corrigan-Radgowski, or Willard. But there are some complications. The state is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar project to replace every window at Osborn with new energy-efficient windows, Banevicius confirmed. Plus, it houses a hospital. Osborn is also a center for production. “It’s like a factory in there,” Fair said in a phone interview. The prison has one of the largest Correctional Industries programs in the state, as part of the Correctional Enterprises Program. Men at Osborn who participate manufacture staff and resident uniforms, bedding, and bags. Their products go beyond just the people who live and work in prisons — they make things for agencies and nonprofits throughout the state. “My office ordered jackets, and we had those made at Osborn,” Ward said. Some police uniforms and badges can be made at Osborn. “When you see the attorney general wearing a jacket that has the attorney general’s emblem, that likely was made at Osborn.” Banevicius said that the program “provides workers with valuable skills, that ideally can be used to secure employment upon reentry into the community.” He said that at Osborn approximately 135 men take part and earn between $0.70 per hour to $1.90 per hour. Osborn also serves as the warehouse for the entire state, according to Ward. Cleaning products are all shipped there, then get routed to facilities around the state. “Osborn just does a lot for the prison system,” he said. Still, the DOC has potential for change at the current moment. Gov. Ned Lamont announced the impending retirement of DOC Commissioner Angel Quiros in February from state service, after serving in the role for more than five years. On March 12, the governor announced the appointment of Sharonda Carlos to serve as interim commissioner effective May 1. Winfield hopes for change. “There’s a high level of frustration with the DOC because quite frankly, I’m the co-chair of the committee that has oversight of the DOC,” said Winfield, who said he has visited every prison in the state at some point. “When we are having trouble getting answers straight, that’s a problem.” “I’m not saying that prisons will be perfect places, reality will tell us that’s not going to be the case,” he continued. “But what we have seen in the ombudsperson’s report, the stories we’ve heard, the struggle that even I have to get straight answers — none of that is appropriate.” Luis (far right) with his sisters, son, nieces, and nephews. Credit: Contributed photo Luis and his son Gabriel at Gabriel’s graduation party. Credit: Contributed photo The post Sister’s Quest Spotlights Brother’s Plight In Prison appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less