Kelan Lyons / CT Mirror

Boys and young men at Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire have been mostly confined to their cells since Nov. 19 due to an outbreak of COVID-19, the state child advocate said Thursday.

The Board of Pardons and Paroles granted its first commutation in two years on Friday morning, creating a path to freedom for a man who has spent three decades in prison for murder and assault.

Nearly a dozen Connecticut prisoners will get a hearing to determine if their sentence should be shortened. Each man was under 25 at the time of his crime.

The Department of Correction has revised its policies on in-cell restraints, an attempt to reduce the length of time incarcerated people are shackled alone in their cells for behavior deemed dangerous by prison officials.

A state task force has recommended that lawmakers consider abolishing the Psychiatric Security Review Board, which supervises people who are found not guilty by reason of insanity, because it favors public safety over patient treatment.

State's Department of Correction is overseeing its own internal policies regarding the use of solitary confinement.

A recent audit of the Department of Correction showed officials have routinely and repeatedly failed to submit required reports; improperly documented overtime; and have improperly overseen union leave — in one case allowing one worker to take more than a year’s worth of paid leave over a two-year period.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have different takes on juvenile crime.

The Social Equity Council approved Thursday a list of 215 communities that will be prioritized for marijuana sales licenses and special equity programs.

For 37 years, Connecticut had a corrections ombudsman who addressed incarcerated people’s complaints and investigated allegations they had been treated unjustly by the Department of Correction, but the office was eliminated in 2010 to save money. Although lawmakers approved a bill in 2019 requiring ombudsman services for minors in adult prisons — just 39 of the 9,020 people behind bars as of July 1 were under age 18 — an effort this year to expand the office to the rest of the prison system failed when Gov. Ned Lamont vetoed legislation containing the funding.