Progressive Mass was a signer to the following testimony organized by Prisoners’ Legal Services – MA. Read the full testimony here.
The mission of the Correctional Funding Commission is a critical one for the good of the Commonwealth. We spend approximately $1.3 billion each year to incarcerate 13,000 people. This means that we are spending approximately $100,000 a year to incarcerate each person currently behind bars – and the Executive Branch projects $732 million to repair, renovate, or replace prisons and jails on top of that. The critical question we must collectively ask is: what is the purpose of this spending, and is this purpose being served?
The charge of the Correctional Funding Commission is, in part, to conduct a comprehensive study to determine the appropriate level of funding for incarceration in the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, as of the public hearing on January 4, 2022, the Commission had not yet discussed “potential ways to increase efficiencies and reduce fixed costs,” a critical component of the analysis. The undersigned believe the Commission can only advance the public interest if its recommendations on spending for the Department of Correction (DOC) and Sheriffs’ Departments are backed up by robust independent oversight mechanisms that provide transparency and accountability to Commonwealth residents.
For decades, we have been attempting to incarcerate our way out of social problems while failing to comprehend crime as primarily driven by poverty and structural racism. Abundant research shows that high levels of incarceration do not increase public safety. Conversely, investing in communities has proven to be extremely successful in reducing violence and the risk of incarceration. The current and long-standing reality is that the Legislature awards ever-larger budgets to the DOC and Sheriffs without requiring measurable and meaningful outcomes for public safety, public health, or the public good.
