HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Connecticut has opened a new unit at the Cheshire Correctional Institution to house 18- to 25-year-olds.
It’s part of Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s goal of preventing young adults who’ve committed nonviolent crimes from becoming career criminals.
The unit, announced Monday, is known as the T.R.U.E. Program, for Truthfulness, Respectfulness, Understanding and Elevating. Offenders began integrating in January into the special unit, which separates them from the adult prison population.
There are currently 38 inmates housed there.
The program comes as Malloy reintroduces legislation creating a new category of non-violent offenders called young adults, 18 to 21 years old.
They’d be treated using procedural rules common in the juvenile justice system. Police and court records related to their arrest would be erased if they didn’t reoffend for four years.
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