FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 11, 2026
Media Contact: Michael Czaczkes, media@vera.org

New York, NY – The Vera Institute of Justice's (Vera’s) Restoring Promise initiative has selected the Connecticut Department of Correction to participate in Designed for Dignity, a new technical assistance opportunity for corrections agencies seeking to transform their prison systems. Over the course of three years, Vera will work with the Connecticut Department of Correction to create and sustain safer, more humane, and healthier environments for correctional professionals and people who are incarcerated in prison.

"We are thrilled to expand the Designed for Dignity work to Connecticut,” said Kayla James, Vera’s Restoring Promise program manager. “The Connecticut Department of Correction, a longtime partner of the Vera Institute of Justice on improving prison conditions, continues to demonstrate its commitment to culture change within the agency through strategic partnerships focused on improving conditions for staff and people incarcerated in its facilities. Vera values the department’s longstanding partnership through its groundbreaking work to reimagine housing units for young adults, which increased feelings of safety, fairness, purpose, and connection for staff and incarcerated people. This new partnership will focus on transforming policy, practice, and training at the state level, including opportunities to foster safety through dynamic security, rely on restorative practices, advance healthy and safe living and working conditions, and engage the families of staff and incarcerated people. We look forward to deepening the impact in Connecticut to make prisons safer and more humane for everyone who enters them.”

“Human dignity is at the core of Connecticut’s vision for corrections,” said Connecticut Department of Correction Commissioner Angel Quiros. “This new partnership with the Vera Institute of Justice’s Restoring Promise initiative builds on the lessons we’ve learned from changing culture at the young adult housing unit level and scales change statewide. We look forward to leveraging this opportunity to impact the lives of even more staff and incarcerated people across the state of Connecticut.”

About Designed for Dignity work in Connecticut:

Over the course of three years, Vera will deliver research-driven training and technical assistance to the Connecticut Department of Correction. Designed for Dignity provides a needs assessment that supports intervention selection, a research-driven implementation plan, training and technical assistance to support implementation activities, and a sustainability roadmap. This systemwide change will be led by a workgroup composed of correctional leadership, staff, and people who are incarcerated. In addition to the new partnership with Connecticut, Vera also partners with the Massachusetts Department of Correction on Designed for Dignity.

Background:

Designed for Dignity is a new arm of Vera’s Restoring Promise initiative that works with corrections agencies to reimagine housing units for young adults and realign corrections policies and practices with a commitment to human dignity. Inspired by a trip to Germany in 2015, leadership from the Connecticut Department of Correction, including then-Commissioner Scott Semple and then-Governor Dannel Malloy, partnered with Restoring Promise to transform the living and working conditions in their prisons for young adults and staff. Within a year, the initiative successfully designed and implemented a first-of-its-kind housing unit for young adults sentenced to state prison, now known as the T.R.U.E. (Truthfulness, Respectfulness, Understanding, and Elevating) community.

Since 2016, Restoring Promise has opened eight distinct units for young adults and partnered with six corrections agencies: Colorado Department of Corrections; Connecticut Department of Correction; Idaho Department of Correction; Middlesex County Jail, Massachusetts; North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; and South Carolina Department of Corrections.

Designed for Dignity builds on this groundbreaking work with corrections agencies. Using Vera’s set of Dignity Principles for conditions of confinement (outlined in Dignity Principles: A Guide to Ensure the Humane Treatment of People in U.S. Carceral Settings) as a guide, as well as the Designed for Dignity approach, Vera will work with agencies to implement strategies that will help meet their goals.

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About the Vera Institute of Justice: The Vera Institute of Justice is powered by hundreds of advocates, researchers, and policy experts working to transform the criminal justice and immigration systems until they’re fair for all. Founded in 1961 to advocate for alternatives to money bail in New York City, Vera is now a national organization that partners with impacted communities and government leaders for change. We develop just, antiracist solutions so that money doesn’t determine freedom; fewer people are in jails, prisons, and immigration detention; and everyone is treated with dignity. Vera’s headquarters is in Brooklyn, New York, with offices in Washington, DC, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. For more information, visit vera.org.