Curbing Solitary Confinement (H.2504)

No Cost Calls (S.1559)

Visitation Rights (H.2440)

Thursday, October 21st, 2021

Testimony to the Joint Committee on Public Safety

My name is Caroline Bays. I am board president of Progressive Massachusetts, Thank you to the chairs, Sen. Timilty and Rep. Gonzalez and the other members of this committee for hearing my testimony. As I said I am testifying as board President of PM for these three bills we are supporting (H.2504 on solitary confinement, S.1559 no cost calls, and H.2440 on visitation rights), but more importantly, I am also testifying as a person who has a dear friend currently experiencing the horrors of our prison system as it is currently run. 

I have been visiting my friend since November of 2016 when I received a call from a mutual friend asking me to go visit this…well…kid who was suicidal and had been put in 10 Block. That has led me on a journey that was impossible to imagine prior to meeting him.  I have listened to him cry about being tortured himself and cry even harder about witnessing the torture of others over the four years he spent in solitary confinement. I have watched the DOC get around the solitary provisions of the CJRA by changing names of units and allowing fifteen extra minutes out of cell time so they don’t have to follow the law. I have been a victim of the DOC’s  concerted efforts to limit visitations – to the point now that after visiting him on a weekly basis, I have only been able to visit him three times since October of 2020 when he was moved from DDU to Souza-Baranowski. I have received the frantic emails asking for money so he can call family – and phones are the only link to us he has left to him since Souza has reduced the visiting schedule to virtually non-existent. But the most horrific thing I have witnessed over the last five ½ years has been the torture that he experienced while in solitary confinement. And if you think I am using the term torture flippantly or I’m exagerating – then please, please, please read the DOJ report which found the DOC guilty of torture and in violation of the 8th amendment. I read the report and as graphic and horrific as the stories were to me – they could have been taken from any of the letters from my friend. I beg you to address the egregious and inexcusable overuse of solitary confinement in the DOC. In fact – to give you an exampleof it’s overuse – My friend was recently put back in solitary confinement. What did he do wrong? He received mail that tested positive for drugs – from his lawyers. 

In summation – these three bills are all necessary to address the concerted effort DOC has made to limit contact between people inside and their loved ones, despite everything we know about how important maintaining relationships to loved ones is for successful re-entry.  I have witnessed first hand how the DOC has tried to get around the solitary confinement provisions in the CJRA of 2018. I have watched loved ones sent away because they weren’t on the approved visitation list. And I have experienced the frantic emails begging for money just so he can call a loved one who was in crisis.

As board President of PM I ask you to report these three bills out favorably – but as a citizen of Massachusetts who has someone I care about inside, I beg you – – please – please help those of us who are suffering by passing these important bills enabling us to keep in contact with our loved ones. Thank you for hearing my testimony. 

Caroline Bays

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