Mass Incarceration Is Bad for MA. These Bills Can Make a Difference.

Prison

October 5, 2021

Chairman Eldridge, Chairman Day, and Members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary:

I am submitting testimony in my capacity as Chair of the Issues Committee of Progressive Massachusetts. We urge a favorable report for the following bills:

  • H.1868: An Act regarding decarceration and COVID-19 (Sabadosa)
  • H.1900: An Act relative to telephone service for inmates in all correctional and other penal institutions in the Commonwealth (Tyler)
  • H.1905: An Act establishing a jail and prison construction moratorium (Tyler)
  • H.1797: An Act to reduce mass incarceration (Miranda/Livingstone)
  • H.1910/S.977: An Act to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences related to drug offenses (Uyterhoeven – Creem)

H.1868: An Act Regarding Decarceration and COVID-19

Incarceration is always harmful, but during a deadly pandemic—and at a time when many correctional officers have resisted vaccination, it is truly a matter of life or death.

Those who are not fed appropriately or allowed appropriate exercise, are more likely than most to have comorbidities, a fact which increases the likelihood that they will die from this disease. Whatever reason they might be in prison for, nobody was sentenced to illness or death. When the state incarcerates someone, the state becomes responsible for ensuring their well-being.  That means releasing as many people as possible in order to ensure that these tragic deaths do not continue and spiral out of control.

H.1900: An Act relative to telephone service for inmates in all correctional and other penal institutions in the Commonwealth

Families across Massachusetts are charged exorbitant fees to maintain vital connections with incarcerated loved ones. This is a regressive tax on the most vulnerable populations, and the MA Legislature can end it.

As communities already struggle with the high cost of housing, health care, and transportation, no one should be forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries and maintaining contact with loved ones. Moreover, punitive policies targeted at the families of incarcerated individuals leave us all worse off: numerous studies have shown that contact with loved ones promotes public safety by supporting successful reentry.

H.1905: An Act establishing a jail and prison construction moratorium

Massachusetts has one of the lowest rates of incarceration in the country, yet we spend more on jails and prisons than most other states. Indeed, while the incarcerated population in MA decreased 21% from 2011-19, spending on incarceration has increased 25% over the same period. According to the Department of Corrections, the cost of keeping one woman incarcerated at MCI-Framingham is $162,260 — money that could be better spent on social supports that help women get back on their feet.

Conditions inside many MA prisons and jails are toxic and inhumane, despite the millions of dollars already poured into them. We cannot put more money in them and expect a different outcome than the one we see today, one that exacerbates racial inequity and trauma.

A five-year moratorium on new prison construction and the expansion of existing prisons and jails will give the Commonwealth the chance to shift spending priorities, especially as we recover from COVID, and the inequalities COVID revealed. We need to give communities the opportunity to create and sustain solutions that address the root causes of incarceration.

Sentencing Reforms: H.1797: An Act to reduce mass incarceration & H.1910/S.977: An Act to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences related to drug offenses

In 2018, the Massachusetts Legislature passed a sweeping criminal justice reform bill. Recognizing that mandatory minimum sentences were a part of a failed “tough on crime” model that fueled mass incarceration, the Legislature eliminated many of them. However, the bill also created new mandatory minimums, continuing this problematic legacy of tying the hands of judges and failing to either deter or address the root causes of offenses.

Similarly ineffective is the sentence of life without parole. Studies have shown that severe sentences are not a deterrent to crime, and the sentence of life without parole forecloses on any possibility of rehabilitation, increases the size of our prison population, and saddles the prison system with the burden of elder care it is not equipped to provide. Enabling individuals who have served for twenty-five years to have a parole hearing is a common-sense reform.

We urge you to give these bills a favorable report and to contribute to our state’s re-evaluation of public safety in line with public health and racial equity.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Chair, Issues Committee

Progressive Massachusetts

Redistricting and YOU: How to Effectively Lobby for Fair Maps in MA

Redistricting 2021 Event

This year — likely this MONTH, the Massachusetts Legislature will be drawing the legislative and Congressional districts for the next decade. The Drawing Democracy Coalition recently released a Unity Map informed by community groups across the state. What are the key features of this map? How does one set priorities in redistricting? What makes a map fair? And how can we be effective advocates?

We’ll have a discussion with Jordan Berg Powers of Mass Alliance, Beth Huang of the Massachusetts Voter Table, and Roberto Jiménez Rivera of the Boston Teachers Union. (Additional speakers may be announced.)

Missed the event? Watch it here.

Missed

The VOTES Act Is Good. Here’s How It Could Be Better.

Tomorrow, the MA Senate will be taking up the VOTES Act, which contains a number of important pro-democracy reforms such as making expanded early voting and vote-by-mail permanent and enacting Same Day Registration so that voters can register or update their registration at the polls.

The MA Senate deserves credit for advancing a strong and comprehensive bill with popular, time-tested, and effective reforms. But the Senate can also make the bill even stronger by including the following amendments:

Amendment #1 (Hinds): Protecting ballot access for eligible incarcerated people, which would require correctional officials to send incarcerated individuals information about their rights, distribute registration forms and absentee ballots to all eligible voters, and ensure that the votes are collected and transferred to election officials, among other reforms to the jail-based voting language.

Amendment #4 (Rausch): Paid time off for voting, which would guarantee workers 2 hours of paid time off to vote, making sure that long hours are not a barrier to participation.

Amendment #111 (Chang-Diaz): Providing Access for Transliterated Ballots, which provides for transliteration of ballots in languages that do not use the Roman alphabet, thereby ensuring that language is not a barrier to full participation.

Amendment #17 (Rausch): Ensuring Access to Ballot Drop Boxes, which requires municipalities to have at least one secure and accessible drop box location with a requirement that larger ones have at least one secured municipal ballot drop box for each twenty-five thousand registered voters.

Amendments #18 & 19 (Rausch): Ensuring Election Day Registration in All Elections / Ensuring Vote By Mail Access in Municipal Elections, which ensure that the reforms in the bill apply to preliminary and general municipal elections. Amendment #28 (Rausch): Permitting Vote By Mail Ballots to be Returned to Regular Polling Places, which would allow voters to drop off mail ballots at their regular polling locations.

Can you email your state senator in support of these important amendments?

Take Action in Support of #NoCostCalls

Right now, families are charged exorbitant fees to maintain vital connections with incarcerated loved ones. This is a regressive tax on the most vulnerable populations of the Commonwealth that also harms public safety by limiting communication and weakening community bonds .

While only 21 percent of the state’s population is Black or Latinx, more than 54 percent of the people imprisoned by the Department of Corrections are. Black and Latinx children are, respectively, nine and three times more likely than White children to have a parent in prison. As communities already struggle with the high cost of housing, health care, and transportation, no one should be forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries and maintaining contact with loved ones.

Today, the Judiciary Committee will be hearing testimony on important legislation to eliminate such fees.

Can you submit testimony to the Judiciary Committee in support of the #NoCostCalls bill?

Redistricting and YOU: How to Effectively Lobby for Fair Maps in MA

This year — likely this MONTH, the Massachusetts Legislature will be drawing the legislative and Congressional districts for the next decade. The Drawing Democracy Coalition recently released a Unity Map informed by community groups across the state. What are the key features of this map? How does one set priorities in redistricting? What makes a map fair? And how can we be effective advocates?

Next Thursday at 7 pm, we’ll have a discussion with Jordan Berg Powers of Mass Alliance, Beth Huang of the Massachusetts Voter Table, and Roberto Jiménez Rivera of the Boston Teachers Union.

RSVP HERE.