Opinion: What Connecticut’s prison newspapers can teach us

Connecticut has forgotten a central piece in the history of its carceral system.

Between 1897 through the 1980s, at least seventeen different newspaper titles were written and published by individuals incarcerated at prisons, jails, and reformatory schools across Connecticut.

These seventeen newspapers varied widely in their voice, length, and content, but they all served as an outlet and form of community for a group of people whose voices and freedoms had been taken away in most other forms. Commenting on the experience of being incarcerated, the newspapers’ content included weekly announcements, artwork, news reporting, opinion pieces, cartoons, poetry, creative writing, legal commentary, personal narratives, interviews, and music reviews.

The papers were circulated within Connecticut’s correctional facilities, other prisons across the United States, and to non-incarcerated people across the state. Despite the powerful writing and unique contributions within these publications, they have largely been forgotten and left behind, scattered and untouched on library shelves across the state and beyond.

Connecticut has failed to recognize these publications and all that they reveal about the injustice of the carceral system in Connecticut. Our research project “A History of Connecticut’s Prison Newspapers” works to uplift and honor these seventeen publications. Our website features a profile for each paper with information about its history, contents, and featured articles. We encourage you to explore each publication through our website and to read full editions of the papers, many of which are available digitally through the Connecticut State Library’s Newspapers of Connecticut archive. There are nearly 1,000 issues of Connecticut’s prison papers available digitally, and each one of us can gain insight about individuals’ experiences within the carceral system by engaging with the powerful writing within these newspapers.

“Prison journalism differs from all others in that it is not conducted for monetary profit. The prison paper is independent of advertisements, subscriptions, or patronage… its editors and contributors work for neither money, fame, nor yet from motives of vanity,” wrote an unnamed author in an editorial for the October 1907 edition of the Monthly Record, Connecticut’s first prison publication. “Its duty is toward the prison-dweller, and its best opportunity to promote that interest lies in that constant influence exerted by the prison periodical in the outside world from which we came and to which we hope to return.”

The Monthly Record was first published in October of 1897, marking the first time a newspaper was written and created by individuals incarcerated at a Connecticut prison. Published out of the Connecticut State Prison in Wethersfield, the paper was discontinued in 1960, although its work was continued by the Bridge, a magazine published out of the same institution. Because of a lack of adequate documentation, it is unknown why the Monthly Record and the sixteen other papers ended.

For a time, Connecticut’s Department of Corrections and prison administrations were supportive of prison journalism or at the very least tolerated the release of the publications. Many publications were permitted to be exchanged with other facilities in Connecticut and beyond through a national network called the Penal Press, of which seven Connecticut prison newspapers were a part of. In 1971, and possibly other years, the state’s Department of Corrections even held an “Institutional Publications Contest.” Yet, as of the 1990s, no trace of any publications from Connecticut’s prisons exist, marking the extreme way that Connecticut’s prison publications rapidly declined.

Documenting and uplifting the history of Connecticut’s newspapers is incredibly important, and yet there is still so much more to be done to support prison journalism in our state. If they wish to, people currently incarcerated in Connecticut deserve an outlet to share their perspectives, experiences, and writing in the same way the authors of the state’s prison publications did for decades from 1897 through the 1980s. Our project plans to continue researching this aspect of our state’s history, and we are ultimately working to construct avenues for individuals currently incarcerated in Connecticut to safely publish their writing and pursue prison journalism.

“Contrary to common belief, the men ‘inside’ think, and are concerned about what is going on in the outside world; concerned enough to make the effort with our magazine, which, as the name implies, is an organ designed to ‘Bridge’ the gap between the outside world and ours,” explained Pablo, the author of the piece “About the Cover…” from the December 1961 edition of the Bridge. “Our problems are still those of the world. We are aware of what is going on out there and we are worried enough to speak out.”

Caitlin Doherty is a member of the Class of 2026 at Trinity College, majoring in Public Policy & Law and Human Rights. Rajsi Rana is part of Trinity College’s Class of 2026, majoring in Neuroscience.