By Livi Stanford
Hartford Courant
HARTFORD, Conn. — State Sen. Saud Anwar, co-chair of the state’s Public Health Committee, recently made a rare request to the state Department of Correction.
Listening to concerns from the community about the long-term negative implications of solitary confinement, Anwar wanted to experience it himself, asking to be incarcerated in the Garner Correctional Institution for 72 hours.
“We know that trauma that an individual endures from solitary confinement can be a lifetime,” he said. “We know that we want people who have been incarcerated to be able to go back into society and survive. We are creating a situation where the individuals are unable to do so.”
Political columnist Kevin Rennie criticized Anwar for the request, calling it “performative nonsense.”
The DOC denied the request due to “substantial safety, security and logistical concerns,” according to a letter from Connecticut DOC Commissioner Angel Quiros.
But Anwar said he wanted to experience what his constituents are enduring.
“People can attack me for trying to get a glimpse of the pain that others feel,” he said. “When I hear from my constituents about the issue, I want to address it. I refuse to look the other way.”
Anwar said that he wanted to experience the solitary confinement before he made it public.
The state passed legislation in 2022 that prohibits placing an “individual in isolated confinement for longer than necessary or for more than 15 consecutive days or 30 total days within any 60-day period.”
But Anwar says more should be done and is advocating for stopping the practice in the state. Legislation in 2021 included efforts to end solitary confinement but Gov. Ned Lamont vetoed the legislation.
Andrius Banevicius, public information officer for the DOC, said in an email that across the agency the number of individuals “placed in restrictive housing has decreased in 2025, when compared to 2024.
“Important to note is the fact that length of stay in a restrictive housing setting has significantly decreased over the past few years – with the average length of stay being three to five days,” he said.
Restrictive housing is a broader term that encompasses solitary confinement.
Banevicius did not specify how many prisoners were placed in restrictive housing in 2025 compared to 2024.
In a letter to Anwar on Aug. 6, Quiros said solitary confinement is not a practice that DOC employs as a “management tool.”
He also further explained why Anwar was unable to go into incarceration because “DOC cannot house individuals who are not legally committed to its custody and care.”
Further, he added that he welcomed the opportunity “to collaborate with” Anwar and his colleagues on “advancing strategies to improve DOC’s medical and mental health services.”
Hearing the stories of those experiencing solitary confinement does not sit well with the senator.
“We have a situation where the Garner facility has a very high rate of suicide attempts and suicidality,” he said. “In fact, individuals are 21 more times likely to commit suicide in Garner compared to other places.”
Garner is a level 4 maximum security prison that serves adult male offenders, both convicted and awaiting trial, with significant mental health issues, according to the state website.
Anwar said solitary confinement does not just impact those incarcerated but also negatively affects correctional officers.
He said those officers experience moral injuries and have more anxiety and depression.
“They also have a high risk of suicide,” he said. “It is not helping the correctional officers. It is not helping the people who are the incarcerated individuals.”
The state has an opportunity to do the right thing, Anwar added, quoting Nelson Mandela who stated, ‘a society how it treats its prisoners, especially the ones in solitary, reflects on its true character.’
“The true character of us as the people of Connecticut would be reflected on how we treat the people in the prison and how we are dealing with them with respect to solitary confinement,” he said.
In a letter to the DOC, Anwar said that “The National Alliance on Mental Illness reported in 2023 that the use of solitary confinement is related to a mental health crisis and correlates to higher risk of death upon an inmate’s release, as it can cause either exacerbation or recurrence of existing mental health issues or new onset of mental illness.”
Anwar said the bills he writes are not just information on paper.
“I try to live the bills the best that I can,” he said.
For example, he said if he is writing a bill on homelessness, he goes and sleeps outside so he can experience the cold.
If he is writing a bill about food insecurity, he said he fasts enough so he can feel the food insecurity and the pain that goes with it.
The senator is known for his humanitarian work including advocating for the homeless, providing medical care to those in need and serving on peace missions to Israel and the Middle East.
After natural disasters in Haiti and Pakistan, Anwar organized medical missions to those countries. He is a doctor who specializes in critical care medicine, lung disease and occupational and environmental medicine, according to his biography.
He has also served as a consultant for the British Department of Communities and Local Government.
In the state, the senator also served as former commissioner of Asian Pacific American Affairs and the Health Equity Leadership Council of Connecticut.
The DOC has come under scrutiny from criminal justice advocates for its practices.
Abimbola King Oretade, president of the Black Lives Matter 860, said he had experienced four days in solitary confinement at the beginning of this year after the Department of Correction said he was experiencing suicidal ideation.
“It made me feel like I am not worth anything,” he said, describing being in isolation for days.
In October 2023, the CTDOC authorized a study to assess its use of restrictive housing to reduce the use of the practice, according to the DOC.
The study completed in November 2024 recommended that the DOC consider “terminating the use of in cell restraints” as it stated that “the practice has continued with a varied staff understanding of the purpose, absence of outcome data and a negative public perception.”
It added that the CTDOC had reduced the average length of stay for individuals placed in restrictive housing units over the past decade and increased out of cell time, according to the report.
Banevicius said DOC contracted with Falcon to assess the agency’s use of restrictive housing with the purpose of reducing its use.
“The department also continues to work to reduce the number of times an individual is placed in cell restraints – the use of these restraints has decreased in 2025 when compared to 2024,” he said.
Sen. Gary Winfield, D- New Haven, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, worked with Stop Solidarity on the passage of the Protect Act in 2022, which limited the amount of time an individual spends in isolation or solitary confinement.
He said what Anwar was trying to do made a lot of sense.
“That is exactly what you would hope a legislator would want to do,” he said.
Addressing the issue of the treatment of prisoners, Winfield said, “A lot of people do not feel they should have anything. If we send back out into society broken folks we all have a problem and have made ourselves less safe.”
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