An ombudsman paid about $147,000 in recent years by Connecticut’s Department of Correction to investigate complaints and conditions surrounding incarcerated youth has failed to file nearly two dozen reports to various state officials, a CT Insider review of public records shows.

The Youth Ombudsman, which is meant to serve as a watchdog for the state agency that incarcerates individuals 18 years old and younger, was initially mandated to provide quarterly reports on its activities to the Department of Correction, which was required to publish them. 

But documents obtained through state Freedom of Information law show that Frontline Support Strategies Consulting, LLC only sent four reports to DOC since the company was hired in 2021, including none this year as of August. While the legislation creating the position required quarterly reports, meaning four per year, the requirement was later changed to monthly reports, according to contracts with the company.

The documents also show it took the Department of Correction two years to hire a youth ombudsman after the legislature ordered them to do so in the law, and provided the funding for the office.

“We are aware that Frontline Support Strategies Consulting, LLC has fallen behind in its reporting and is working to provide the missing reports,” DOC spokeswoman Ashley McCarthy said in an email.

In response to a request for comment, Frontline staff said in an email this month they plan to “resume the frequency” of quarterly reports but said there is no requirement to produce the reports.

“There has never been legislative requirements provided to our team dictating the required frequency of reporting; we decided quarterly reports internally as a good practice given the volume of new information/resident reports,” Frontline said in the statement.

The state law passed in 2019 that mandated the DOC to hire a youth ombudsman was changed in May 2022 and did away with the requirement, though the DOC’s contract with Frontline still required monthly reports.

Frontline said it is catching up on filing reports.

“We did not submit a Q4 report for 2023,” Frontline said. “We will submit that right away to the MYI (Manson Youth Institution) team. Our Q3 report for 2024 will also be following as that period is closing now; that brings us to current.”

The Youth Ombudsman is assigned to work with young individuals incarcerated at Manson Youth Institution in Chesire and York Correctional Institution in Niantic, the state’s only prison for women.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Ned Lamont did not respond to a request for comment.

State Sen. Gary Winfield, the co-chair of the legislature's Judiciary Committee, said he was frustrated required reports were not submitted. 

"We should have every single one of them — not just because we are paying for them, and we should be careful with how we use state money — but also because we have young folks in our system that we have a duty of care to," Winfield said. "These reports ostensibly should help us figure out whether we are meeting that duty of care ... If they don't exist that's a major problem for me."

Ken Krayeske, a New Haven attorney and DOC critic who has won numerous lawsuits against the correction department and landed other high-figure settlements with the agency, said not adhering to requirements is typical for the agency.

“This is part and parcel of a pattern of the DOC refusing to follow legislative mandates,” said Krayeske, who was passed over to be ombudsman for the adult prison population and said he was aware of the requirement for the youth ombudsman to file reports.

“The lack of reports for Manson is emblematic of the atmosphere by the Lamont administration,” Krayeske said. “I’ve seen a couple of [youth ombudsman] reports in which they just talk about TVs and whatnot. There is so much that needs to be done.”

The DOC ombudsman role to oversee the adult prison population recently made news because the position sat unfilled for years due to a disagreement between the governor and lawmakers over who should fill the post. Krayeski was recommended for the job by the state’s Correction Advisory Committee, but he was rejected by Lamont.

Soon after CT Insider highlighted the standoff, Lamont appointed DeVaughn L. Ward of New London to serve as Connecticut’s interim correction ombudsman.

An ombudsman meets with incarcerated individuals, investigates complaints and generally ensures conditions at a correctional facility are fair and concerns from those incarcerated are being heard.

For decades, the state had a one-person ombudsman for adult prisoners, but the role was eliminated in 2011 over budget deficits. Lawmakers restored the adult ombudsman position, expanded the office and added a new ombudsman team for incarcerated youth individuals.

A new position

In 2019, in the wake of a state watchdog report detailing that children at a state prison were spending weeks in solitary confinement – one getting just 30 minutes outside of their windowless cell each day – and not getting any education or rehabilitative treatment, state legislators immediately acted and passed legislation that ordered the Department of Correction to hire an ombudsman to investigate the complaints and the conditions at Connecticut’s youth prison and work to resolve them.

The legislature provided the money for the agency to create a two-person ombudsman office and required that office or contractor to report quarterly on their work.

A few months later, the U.S. Department of Justice notified Lamont the federal agency has opened a civil rights investigation into how the state was treating imprisoned children.

The correction department did not, however, get around to hiring an ombudsman until July 2021 – two years after the law required them to do so and despite the conditions being flagged and the ongoing federal probe.

“Due to logistical challenges, there are no ombudsman services in place,” the corrections agency eventually reported to the legislature’s Judiciary Committee.

The state and the contracted ombudsman agreed to come up with key performance measures for the watchdog to track and report monthly to DOC.

But the ombudsman – Frontline Support Strategies Consulting – tuned in just one report during their first year.

The DOC later extended and amended Frontline’s contract and changed the reporting requirement from quarterly to monthly, records show.

The legislature also changed the law and broadened it to require an ombudsman office be created for everyone the state incarcerates and housed in an independent state agency.

That position also went unfilled for years.

Last month – years after the DOC had a chance to improve after flags were raised – the U.S. Justice Department reached a settlement with DOC that mandates drastic changes in how the agency treats the youth it incarcerates.

The Legislature in 2019 authorized a new Youth Ombudsman position, directing the DOC hire an organization to work with “persons 18 years of age or younger in the custody of the Commissioner of Correction.” But for various reasons, an ombudsman was not hired until June of 2021.

The duties for the Youth Ombudsman, as outlined in legislation authorizing the position, included reviewing “decisions, actions, omissions, policies, procedures, rules or regulations of the Department of Correction.” Other duties involved “investigating such complaints, rendering a decision on the merits of each complaint and communicating the decision to the complainant, recommending to the commissioner a resolution of any complaint found to have merit, recommending policy revisions to the department, and publishing a quarterly report of all ombudsman services activities.”

The law notes the ombudsman “shall annually report the name of such person to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to the Department of Correction.”

In its statement, Frontline said it is working to file the reports.

“We are not withholding reports; we did not submit a Q4 report for calendar year 2023; additionally, we submitted one report from January to June 2024,” the company said. “We have a July-September 2024 that will be submitted to DOC at the close of this quarter, and resume with the quarterly cycle.”

Frontline added: “Since the initiation of the contract (in July 2021), we have done in person visits twice weekly without exception to MYI to meet with the [youth] population in the ombudsman capacity; we remained in person even throughout the pandemic with visitor restrictions in place.”

Krayeske said the mandate to produce reports outlining the ombudsman’s activities is clearly established in the legislation.

“Why can’t the DOC do anything by the book?” Krayeske said. “At what point does Gov. Lamont say all this lack of compliance really indicates ‘I should do something,’ but we have seen zero appetite to do anything.”

Barbara Fair, a founder of Stop Solitary in Ct, which recently won a ban against extreme solitary confinement, said the ombudsman reports are important.

“The reports show they are doing their job,” Fair said. “But no one seems to enforce anything. We have a governor who does not care what goes on with incarcerated people. They are falling down on the job so they can be slack as to what their jobs are. DOC has not had oversight in many years.”

According to the most recent contract signed by Frontline, the company cannot be paid more than $71,000 annually. The contract ends in June 2025.

Records posted online by the state Comptroller's office indicate Frontline, which was hired as the youth ombudsman in mid-2021, was paid by the DOC $26,126 for fiscal year 2022, which ran from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022. The company was paid $53,066 for fiscal 2023; $55,066 for during the 2024 fiscal year and $12,782 for 2025 fiscal year.

Visits and holiday meals

Documents obtained by CT Insider included four Frontline reports submitted to DOC. The reports show the ombudsman’s interaction with various incarcerated youth and provide insights into issues facing the youthful prison population.

The documents include a December 2021 report to DOC; a November to December 2022 report; and two 2023 reports covering the time between January and April and July and September of that year. A brief report to the Legislature explained the Youth Ombudsman was hired in June 2021.

A review of the 2023 reports found a variety of information about the young, incarcerated individuals, including a new basketball tournament at Manson, which the ombudsman said resulted in “no behavioral incidents” among the participants. The reports also discuss serious issues, such as one incarcerated youth whose eye was badly damaged in a fight.

The ombudsman added the young, incarcerated individuals were meeting with parents, and some of those meetings had been observed by the ombudsman team; the team visited a suicidal youth; witnessed staff engaging in “conflict resolution” with those incarcerated; and incarcerated individuals reported physical force was only being used when “absolutely unavoidable.”

The report noted no formal grievances were filed during the period and advised DOC to provide more “fatherhood programs.”

A report covering November and December 2022 at Manson noted in-person visits had been reinstated, incarcerated youth still lacked access to a library and holiday meals were well received. The report does not indicate why visits had been restricted.

The report said some laundry machines were not working, non-functioning televisions were an issue in various areas, some incarcerated youth complained about a lack of mail service and rising commissary prices and others expressed “frustration” over not being able to contact lawyers.

The records obtained by CT Insider also included a few email exchanges between the ombudsman team and DOC staff, including a brief discussion of reports filed by Frontline.

For example, on October 19, 2023, Frontline informed a DOC staffer that a report had been transmitted to the agency.

“You will find the quarterly report attached, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know,” the email noted. “Thank you, Frontline Team.”

In another email, a DOC staff member on May 19, 2023 told other official a recent report by Frontline was “very positive.”

Winfield, the state senator, said the reports were not what he was expecting given the Department of Justice investigation and settlement and investigation by the state's child advocate about the conditions at Manson.

"Having that kind of knowledge going into (reading these reports) and seeing this kind of almost 'You're doing a good job' makes me feel like it didn't really go deep enough," he said during an interview.

He said he has read a lot of reports over the years hearing from those incarcerated and reading about their conditions, and after reading the youth ombudsman reports he doesn't have confidence he has a better understanding of how children are being treated at Manson.

"I generally walk away from these type of things having some real pictures of what is being observed in there. I don't know that I do that with these reports," he said.

Those reports — and an effective ombudsman — Winfield said could have potentially prevented the need for the state to settle with the U.S. Justice Department over inhumane conditions.

"Having an independent ombudsman in place has a lot to do with the type of behavior you would see in a system," Winfield said, noting if one is in place "I think I'd be less likely to do things I'm not supposed to do."