Advocates say a moratorium on prison construction makes sense because the state’s incarceration rate has dropped dramatically and most imprisonment is inherently dehumanizing, and too many criminal offenses are the result of race-based oppression. Opponents say we need updated prison facilities, even with fewer prisoners behind bars.
Department of Correction
Posted inCriminal Justice
SJC to referee another medical parole dispute
SINCE THE LEGISLATURE established medical parole in 2018, prisoners’ rights advocates and Department of Correction officials have been in a near-constant fight about how the law is being implemented. Advocates say the Baker administration has repeatedly applied the law too narrowly, making too few people eligible for release on medical grounds. The Supreme Judicial Court, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
What to do with the state’s half-empty prison system
MASSACHUSETTS IS POCKMARKED by a web of correctional facilities, 484 buildings in total with nearly 10 million square feet of space among them. Picture the Hancock, the Pru, the Boston Convention Center, the Hynes Convention Center, the DCU Center, and the MassMutual Center. Together, these cavernous buildings couldn’t hold half of the space contained in […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Souza-Baranowski prison to introduce officer-worn body cameras
SOME CORRECTION OFFICERS at Souza-Baranowski prison will begin wearing body cameras this summer, under a new pilot program being launched by the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. The maximum-security state prison has come under increasing scrutiny amid allegations of brutality by prison guards. “Implementing this [body-worn camera] pilot program reinforces our commitment to advancing […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
High court sides with DOC on prison COVID rules
THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT ruled Thursday that the Department of Correction has not been “deliberately indifferent” to inmates’ health during the COVID pandemic, because it took precautions and, most significantly, offered COVID vaccines to all inmates. Attorneys for prisoners had argued that the department should have done more to release prisoners because of the health […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Department of Correction finally hires ombudsman
AFTER A DELAY of several months, the Department of Correction has entered into a contract with the University of Massachusetts Medical School to create an ombudsman’s office within the department. But critics – including prisoners’ rights advocates and some lawmakers – are raising concerns about the appointment process and worry that the ombudsman’s office will […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Ombudsman position at Correction Dept. still unfilled
AS THE COVID-19 pandemic spread through the prison system, lawmakers inserted an item into last year’s budget bill creating a new position of ombudsman at the Department of Correction. The ombudsman was supposed to keep an independent eye on the department to make sure officials were complying with health and safety best practices during the pandemic, including […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Lawsuit says DOC accused lawyers, inmates based faulty drug test
ARE LAWYERS ACTUALLY sending letters to inmates in Massachusetts prisons that are meant not so much to be read but smoked? It sounds like the plot to a zany dramedy, but a lawsuit filed this week claims that’s the implication of findings against two lawyers and two inmates who have been tripped up by a […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Judge denies injunction to cut prison population
A SUPERIOR COURT judge denied a preliminary injunction that would have required the state Department of Correction to make specific efforts to further reduce its prison population in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Superior Court Judge Robert Ullmann ruled that there was not enough evidence of “deliberate indifference” toward the virus threat by the DOC. […]
Posted inThe Download
Medical parole not always compassionate
Ten months after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the Department of Correction to provide daily reports to shed light on the COVID-19 situation inside its facilities, questions are surfacing about how the agency is reporting medical parole data. Part of the point of the court’s April order was to use medical parole as a […]