By Christine Dempsey
The Hartford Courant
BROOKLYN, Conn. — A donation from an unlikely source is going toward a project that will help police.
Prison officials on Friday will present a $2,000 donation from inmates at the Brooklyn Correctional Institution to advocates of domestic violence victims. The donation will help fund the cost of new cards that will put updated information into the hands of officers who are responding to family violence scenes.
Prisoners helping police?
“That’s the plus for me,” said Linda Trahan, correctional counselor at Brooklyn Correctional Institution. “Using their money.”
The so-called “best practices” cards will highlight relevant laws and list questions that will help officers determine a victim’s level of danger, among other things. They’re like cheat sheets, Trahan said.
An older version of the cards are widely used across the state, but the prisoners’ donations will help pay for updated cards, said Karen Jarmoc, president and CEO of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which is working with the state Office of the Victim Advocate on the project.
The donation will be made through a program at the prison called Brooklyn Cares. It is run by five prisoners, Trahan and a clerk. The donated money comes from the inmate accounts which prisoners use to pay for snacks. Inmates earn the money — in small amounts, like 75 cents a day — by doing jobs in prison, Trahan said. Brooklyn Correctional is the only state prison that sells popcorn, ice cream and soda to inmates.
Trahan acknowledges that some prisoners don’t know where the money is going, but she tells inmates about the program every chance she gets. She never got a negative reaction, she said.
Brooklyn Cares has been donating to charities, most in northeastern Connecticut, for 20 years. In all, the program has given away some $160,000, Trahan said.
The donations to domestic violence organizations and programs are especially meaningful, though, since about 90 percent of prisoners have been impacted in some way by family violence, Trahan said.
“All the way around, it’s kind of ironic,” she said. “To me, it’s a form of restorative justice, because it’s their money. They have to work for it.”
Jarmoc said she is looking forward to getting the cards printed and distributed to police around the state.
“This is going to impact thousands of people and officers, in terms of how they react at a scene of a family violence incident,” she said. “This card will be useful in terms of offering the officers information and guiding their best response, and when they have this card, it’s just going to be win-win.”
Copyright 2016 The Hartford Courant