Dan Barrett has been an American Civil Liberties Union attorney for 12 years, serving as legal director for the Connecticut branch for the past five years in what the organization sees as often tumultuous times for civil liberties.

The Connecticut ACLU has been busy in recent months lending its name to a class action lawsuit calling for the release of many of the state's prisoners due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization has also been forceful in its disapproval of how former Hartford State's Attorney Gail Hardy handled four police-involved shootings.

But Barrett told the Connecticut Law Tribune Thursday the most pressing issue is what he sees as "government oppression of people of color, specifically at the hands of police, prosecutors, and prisons."

In a question-and-answer session, Barrett spoke about why he believes there should be divestment and defunding of police, whom he said have "consistently demonstrated an unwillingness or inability to behave safely and evenhandedly."

A native of New Jersey, Barrett lives in Hartford. He received his law degree from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston in 2007.

Barrett's answers were edited for length and clarity.

Connecticut Law Tribune: What is the most pressing civil liberties issue right now in Connecticut?

Dan Barrett:  Government oppression of people of color, specifically at the hands of police, prosecutors, and prisons.

Those three systems combine to subject a large swath of people to disproportionate surveillance and punishment on an industrial scale.

From Salisbury to Stonington, people in Connecticut have recognized the murder of George Floyd was a life-altering event for the nation; we should now further reflect—particularly lawyers—on what choices brought us to the point where line-level municipal employees feel empowered to summarily execute people in the street for misdemeanors, and half of the people Connecticut incarcerates are people of color. Neither of those things happened by accident.

CLT: The local branch had been very vocal against the reappointment of Gail Hardy as Hartford State's Attorney for her role in four police-involved shootings. She has since been hired to lead diversity and inclusion efforts within the Office of Chief State's Attorney. What is the view of the ACLU of Connecticut of Hardy's new role?

Barrett: It sends a message that the Department of Criminal Justice seems more interested in shielding prosecutors from public scrutiny and maintaining the status quo of police violence and mass incarceration than in pursuing community well-being.

CLT: The ACLU of Connecticut has played a pivotal role in recent months with regard to lawsuits stemming from getting prisoners in the state released due to COVID-19 concerns. How are those efforts going and how prevalent is COVID-19 in the state's prison population?

Barrett: The class of prisoners suing for COVID-preventative measures in Connecticut prisons has reached a proposed settlement with the defendants, and the U.S. District Court will consider the fairness of that settlement on July 20th.

Connecticut's incarcerated people should not have had to file a lawsuit to obtain protections against COVID.

But given the range of important measures the litigation brought about, and that are in the settlement agreement, we are hopeful the rampant spread of the virus will slow. The pathogen is still widespread inside the walls, though: ongoing testing has revealed about 10% of Connecticut's prisoners are infected.

CLT:  On the ACLU of Connecticut's website on June 24 there is a statement from ACLU staff calling for a divestment from policing, stating "It should be a reality." Why is defunding or divesting from police to reallocate funding to other sources a civil liberties issue?

Barrett: Divestment and defunding are a civil liberties priority because police agencies are the government entities most dangerous to Connecticut's people, and disproportionately so to people of color.

Over the decades, Connecticut police have consistently demonstrated an unwillingness or inability to behave safely and evenhandedly, so it's time to accept that intransigence at face value and just sharply curtail their footprint in our society.

Since this is the Connecticut Law Tribune and many of its readers counsel organizations, perhaps a useful analogy is to a product or service that seriously injures people every few weeks, but whose manufacturer or vendor consistently rebuffs complaints by saying that the high risk of injury is inherent and viewed by some as a feature.

At some point, a rational lawyer would counsel their client to stop using that product or service or restrict its use to an absolute minimum until an alternative could be arranged. We've long since passed that point in Connecticut with policing.

Of course, I'm not telling anyone anything new: about half of all towns in Connecticut have declined to maintain a policy agency. The idea of divestment is something that Black leaders have been saying for decades and that Black Lives Matter has been championing in the last few years; it's our responsibility to take that advice to heart.

CLT: How—in the opinion of the ACLU of Connecticut—has Gov. Ned Lamont handled his job with regard to civil liberties issues in the current health pandemic?

Barrett: In Connecticut, as elsewhere, the government's response has placed most Black and Latino people in harm's way.

For example, the governor has refused to meet with the families of incarcerated people who are worried sick about their loved ones, or to even have a working phone line that people can call to raise their concerns with his office. He has, on the other hand, used his emergency powers to lift restrictions on golf clubs. It's tough to ignore the juxtaposition.

Related stories