From The Steering Committee of the Coalition for Effective Public Safety
NOTE DATE CHANGE BELOW!

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GOV. BAKER HAS NOMINATED YET ANOTHER CAREER PROSECUTOR TO SIT ON THE PAROLE BOARD. CALL YOUR GOVERNOR’S COUNCILLOR NOW TO OPPOSE THIS NOMINATION. 

The governor has nominated Karen McCarthy, a prosecutor for the past 27 years at the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office, to fill a vacancy on the Parole Board. The Parole Board has seven members and McCarthy would be the fifth one from law enforcement.  She is being nominated to fill the spot left by another career prosecutor, Paul Treseler, now a judge.    

TELL YOUR GOVERNOR’S COUNCILLOR:  NO MORE LAW ENFORCEMENT.

Massachusetts legislators envisioned a diversified parole board when they required that persons appointed to the Board have an undergraduate degree and at least five years of experience and training in one or more of the following fields: “parole, probation, corrections, law, law enforcement, psychology, psychiatry, sociology [or] social work.” Our present Parole Board already has four members who have spent their careers in law enforcement– (Chair Gloriann Moroney, former Suffolk ADA), corrections (Sheila Dupre and Colette Santa), parole (Tina Hurley)– and one in law (Tonomey Coleman).

At present, there is only one person from human services on the Board, psychologist Charlene Bonner, who has been sitting in holdover status for a year because the governor has not re-appointed her. 

When parole boards are dominated by law enforcement, hearings are often an attempt to re-try the crime. Board members lack the expertise to ask more meaningful questions about recovery from mental illness and participation in sex offender and substance use treatment programs. However, given that 80% of the incarcerated population suffers from these ailments, we desperately need people on the Parole Board who have dedicated their careers to substance use and mental health treatment, trauma informed practices and adolescent brain development.

CALL YOUR COUNCILLOR NOW:  Nominations to the Parole Board must be approved by a majority vote of the eight-member Governor’s Council. We can make a difference. Act now!

● Urge your councillor to vote “no” on Karen McCarthy’s nomination.

● Tell your councillor that we need an experienced social worker, another forensic or clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist on the Board who has experience working with persons with substance use disorders, mental illness, and trauma; and understands adolescent brain development. 

● Ask your councillor to confirm only those who have demonstrated a belief in redemption and value rehabilitation and transformation. 

● Tell your councillor that a diverse Board combats a purely punitive approach to parole and is a necessity for fairness.

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THE PAROLE BOARD’S JOB:  
Parole is an important public safety tool that, when properly administered, eases re-entry problems, lowers recidivism, and results in significant cost-savings. As 70 community groups noted in a 2017 letter to Governor Baker and Chief Justice Gants, it has been understood for decades that formerly incarcerated people reoffend at significantly lower rates when they receive appropriate support and supervision on parole. In Massachusetts, however, due to our very low parole rates, most parole-eligible people complete or “wrap up” their sentences in prison and transition home with no help and no oversight.

It is the job of the Parole Board to understand and predict behavior.  Our system of parole only works when the Parole Board is made up of a well-rounded group of people who have the expertise necessary to properly evaluate candidates for parole. As the Parole Board gains more and more members with backgrounds in law enforcement, the parole rates drop correspondingly and precipitously. When parole rates drop, the rates of recidivism rise. A lack of diversification on the Parole Board not only leads to lower parole rates, but it also leads to less informed parole hearings and decisions. The vacancy on the Board must be filled by someone who believes in parole and second chances and who has education, training and expertise in mental illness, substance use, trauma and adolescent brain development.  

PAROLE IS NOT WORKING IN MASSACHUSETTS: 

● We have extremely low parole rates, which means we have too many people incarcerated; many persons who are ready for parole are being passed over by this law-enforcement-leaning Board. See June 2018 letter to Governor signed by 45 community groups.  

● People on parole are being returned to prison for very low-level technical violations, instead of receiving appropriate treatment in the community, again leading to unnecessary incarceration.   

● The Parole Board is not ruling on Commutation Petitions and Requests to Terminate Parole. Some have been pending for over three years, again leading to unnecessary incarceration.

● The Board takes up to a year to rule on parole-eligible lifers’ requests for parole.  This contributes to unnecessary incarceration and is evidence of a poorly run Board.

● The Board’s failure to maximize parole supervision is extremely costly for taxpayers. According to DOC, the average annual cost of housing a state prisoner is $70,892, while the estimated cost of a year of parole supervision is less than $10,000. (The Board reported an annual cost of $5,000 in 2013.)

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COME TO THE PUBLIC HEARING AT THE GOVERNOR’S COUNCIL on June 19th at 11:00 am – Room 360 at the Statehouse.  YOUR PRESENCE IS IMPORTANT. 

But right now, WE NEED YOU TO MAKE CALLS BEFORE THE JUNE 12^th HEARING. IF YOU CANNOT CALL, PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO YOUR COUNCILLOR.

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FIND YOUR DISTRICT: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eledist/counc11idx.htm

MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR’S COUNCILLORS.  HERE ARE THE PHONE NUMBERS/EMAIL ADDRESSES TO USE.  

Joseph C. Ferreira – District 1                             

7 Thomas Drive
Somerset, MA 02726
GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 1
Fax: 508-230-2510
Email: jferreira@lynchlynch.com

Robert L. Jubinville – District 2

487 Adams Street
Milton, MA 02186
GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 2
Bus: 800-828-9010
Fax: 617-698-8004
Email: Jubinville@comcast.net

Marilyn M. Petitto Devaney – District 3

98 Westminster Avenue
Watertown, MA 02472
GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 3
Cell: 617-840-7689
Fax: 617-727-6610
Email: marilyn.p.devaney@gov.state.ma.us or marilynpetittodevaney@gmail.com

Christopher A. Iannella – District 4

263 Pond Street
Boston, MA 02130
GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 4
Bus: 617-227-1538
Fax: 617-742-1424

Email: caiannella@aol.com

Eileen R. Duff – District 5

8 Barberry Heights Road
Gloucester, MA 01930
GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 5
Bus: 978-927-8700
Fax: 617-727-6610
Email: eileenduff3@gmail.com

Terrence W. Kennedy – District 6

3 Stafford Road
Lynnfield, MA 01940
GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 6
Bus: 617-387-9809
Fax: 617-727-6610
Email: twkennedylaw@gmail.com

Jennie L. Caissie – District 7

53 Fort Hill Road
Oxford, MA 01540
GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 7
Bus: 508-765-0885
Fax: 508-765-0888
Email: jcaissie@caplettelaw.com

Mary E. Hurley – District 8

15 Fields Drive
East Longmeadow, MA  01028
GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 8
Bus: 413-785-5300
Fax: 413-733-3042
Email: mhurley@pellegriniseeley.com

LAUREN WALKER / TRUTHOUT

Hope you’ll read and share my newest article on Truthout--“Fighting to End the Other Death Sentence: Life Without Parole” about the inhumanity of this harsh sentence and how activists are fighting to end it. More

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

image courtesy of Andula Agecy Website

Lois Ahrens of Real Cost of Prisons Project passed along the new incredibly awful procedures for mail in Pennsylvania prisons. As she says, a bad idea does get passed along from prison to prison, and apparently other states have already initiated some of these horrendous policies.

Here is what is on the Pennsylvania DOC website which they are calling ways to eliminate drugs. Bold is mine.Imagine how long it will take people inside to get mail or any books.

“Non-legal mail will now go to a privatized processing company in FL where it will be scanned and emailed back to the prison. Books will need to be ordered through the PA DOC.  Details below.

MAIL
Effective immediately, all regular/non-legal inmate mail should now be shipped to the following address utilizing existing DOC mail rules:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Inmate Name/Inmate Number
Institution
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg FL 33733

EXAMPLE:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Joe Jones/AB1234
SCI Camp Hill
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg FL 33733

Envelopes must include a return address. Photos will be limited to 25 per mailing. Any mailing received with more than 25 photos will be returned to sender.
All legal inmate should be addressed to/sent to the facility at which the inmate is housed.

From the PA DOC
Immediate elimination of mail processing at facilities
Effective immediately, all inmate mail will be sent to a central processing facility where it will be opened, scanned and emailed back to the facilities. Initially, this process will take a few days however, after the initial 90 day transition period, mail will be delivered the day after it has been received. Mail delivery will be expanded to 6 days per week.
Each facility will print the mail and deliver it to the inmates effectively eliminating any possibility of drug introduction through the mail system. Effective immediately, all mail that was collected during the lockdown will be returned to sender – no exceptions.

Books & Publications
Effective immediately, the DOC will begin to transition to ebooks coupled with bolstered DOC library system featuring centralized purchasing and ordering process. No books or publications will be shipped directly to an inmate.
Inmates will have access to a “publication request icon” on existing kiosks and all requests will be forwarded to central office for processing once the publication/book has been paid for by a cash slip. Central office will purchase in bulk from various sellers to prohibit the introduction of contraband.
Friends and family may make requests to purchase books for inmates and may pay for those items via an account specifically for this purpose. Once payment has been received, the DOC will order the publication and ship it to the institution where the inmate resides.
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The Abolitionist Law Center sent an email saying it was monitoring the newly unveiled policies which “represent a threat to the rights, dignity, and health of our incarcerated clients, friends, and family. The problems occurring during the last week [a lockdown in Pennsylvania prisons] will be compounded and added to by these measures that will further restrict and chill communication between incarcerated people and those outside the walls.”

Please see my newest on Truthout! Here’s how it begins:

(Image: Gts / Shutterstock; Edited: JR / TO)

This past January, prisoners in Florida went on strike to protest what they called modern-day slavery in the state’s prisons. As of March, not only had the Florida Department of Corrections not responded to the demand for paid labor and improved living conditions, it had also placed some of the prisoners who were demanding fair wages into solitary confinement. As Heather Ann Thompson, author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy succinctly said on Democracy Now!, “If you do not treat people as human beings they will eventually erupt.” The fight is far from over.  MORE 

This is an email I received yesterday from Lois Ahrens, executive director of the Real Cost of Prisons Project and I decided to post it here because it really is disturbing. It was tited: “Cost for STAFFING ONLY for MA jails. Our tax dollars at work.” Her information is based on what she received from the Bristol County for Correctional Justice (bristol.county.justice@gmail.com) on April 14, 2018. I’ve included the chart she sent as well. Oh, Massachusetts…