Time to Press Pause on Prison Construction

The Massachusetts Legislature is currently considering a proposal to spend $50 million to build a new women’s prison to replace MCI-Framingham.

Backers of the project often tout that the new facility for the approximately 125 women still incarcerated there will be a “trauma-informed” prison. But here’s the problem: there’s no such thing as a trauma-informed prison. Despite the statistics which have proven that incarceration increases the likelihood that a person will reoffend once released, the state continues to pour money into a carceral system that we know does not keep our communities safe and, instead, increases recidivism.

Alternatives to the carceral status quo are necessary and possible, and the first step is to press pause on the construction of new prisons and jails that lock in the current system. That is why we’re supporting S.2030/H.1905, which would impose a five-year moratorium on prison and jail construction

Starting tomorrow (or, if you’re reading this in the morning, “today”), human rights advocates across the state will begin a week-long walk from Springfield to Boston to bring awareness to the need to create such alternatives to incarceration by directly addressing root causes, such as the inability to access housing, food, and jobs.

If you can join for all or part of the walk, RSVP here!

If you can’t join, you can still make a difference by contacting your state legislators in support of S.2030/H.1905. Send them an email here.

MA Can Do More to Protect Tenants from Eviction. Here’s How.

Last week, the right-wing Supreme Court ruled against the extension of the CDC’s federal eviction moratorium, putting millions of tenants at risk across the country.

While we wait for Congress to take action, we can take action here in Massachusetts by passing the COVID Housing Equity Bill.

Massachusetts has hundreds of millions of dollars in federal rental assistance, but the application process is complex and resources are not reaching tenants in time to prevent unnecessary evictions.

The COVID Housing Equity Bill complements and strengthens the work of these existing programs by (1) ensuring that landlords pursue and cooperate with rental assistance programs before evicting, (2) pausing no-fault evictions through March 2022, and (3) pausing residential foreclosures, among other steps.

Housing is a human right, and never has that been more clear than during a pandemic.

Can you contact your legislators in support of the COVID Housing Equity Bill?

Fair Share Amendment Advocate Training!

Next Thursday, at 6 pm, Raise Up Massachusetts will be holding a training call for the pledge card program for the Fair Share Amendment this fall.

Sign up to learn more about the plan for our campaign for the rest of 2021 and how you can most effectively advocate for the Fair Share Amendment!

There shouldn’t be a voter registration deadline.

If you live in Boston, Brockton, Framingham, Gloucester, Haverhill, Lynn, Malden, Medford, Newton, Peabody, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Somerville, or Worcester, then today is the last day to register to vote or update your registration before the September 14th preliminary. You can do that online here.

That, however, raises a key question: Why do we even have such a 20-day cutoff at all?

Our neighbors in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut all allow eligible voters to register or update their registration at the polls. In total, 20 states and DC have Same Day Registration.

So we know it’s possible. And we know it works: studies have shown that Same Day Registration is one of the best reforms for increasing voter participation.

When the MA House and MA Senate consider a voting reform package this fall to make some of last year’s changes permanent, it’s vital that Same Day Registration be a part of it.


Can you email your state legislators today in support of Same Day Registration?


Your Legislators Should Hear Your Story.

The pandemic has made many things clear, not least of which is how weak our child care infrastructure is.

And we can change that.

The Common Start Coalition is collecting a set of 1-2 minute videos to send to legislators to make the case for significant investment in the early education and care system, in anticipation of a bill later this legislative session. The Coalition plans to send legislators videos from parents, early educators, and advocates across the Commonwealth about the need for investment.

Please see the instructions below and contribute a video — or share your story via the online form here.

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VIDEO INSTRUCTIONS

Videos should be under 2 minutes long and can be shot from your cell phone. Please email videos to james@field-first.com and include the spelling of your full name and the city where you live in the email. This will help us determine the legislator for your district.

Outline for Video Testimony

Hi, I’m [name] from [city or town].
If it applies: I’m a [parent/family member/guardian.
I’m also [an essential worker, a childcare provider, a family care worker, working from home, unemployed, a business owner, an early educator, etc]. Child care is important to me because [fill in the blank].
When you have the opportunity to fund early education and childcare in Massachusetts, please remember my story because there are many others like me. Please invest in access to safe, high-quality, affordable child care.

MA Needs to Ban Facial Surveillance

Facial surveillance

Last year, the Legislature passed a police accountability bill that created better standards for police professionalization as well as stronger limitations on the use of force. It was a step forward, but there is much more to be done. 

One such example? Banning Facial surveillance technologies. 

Facial surveillance technologies are notoriously racist, inaccurate, and harmful. Rather than banning such practices, the bill offered only narrowly tailored regulations and created a Commission to study whether to do more. 

They need to do more. 

The Commission will be hearing public comment this Friday at 11 am. 

Want to see stronger regulations of facial surveillance? You can sign up to give public testimony here — or submit written testimony here.

There Is No Such Thing as a “Trauma-Informed” Prison

Tomorrow, the Legislature will hold a hearing on a bill to impose a five-year moratorium on the construction of new prisons and jails.

This is particularly urgent because the state wants to spend 50 million dollars to build a new prison to house just over 100 women, most of whom are safe to release to their homes and families.

This bill is personal because for the last five years I have been visiting a friend in prison, and I have watched with horror what prisons are really like and what they do to a person. My friend has endured torture unlike anything you can imagine — four years in solitary confinement, starvation, and assaults. The prisons here in Massachusetts are brutal, nightmarish places. As a system and institution for rehabilitation, they simply do not work.

Please submit testimony in support of a prison construction moratorium.

The state says this new facility will be different — it will be a “trauma-informed” prison. But, in visiting Andrew over the last five years, I have learned that there is no such thing as a trauma-informed prison because when a person has no autonomy or freedom in their life and when other human beings have complete and total control over them, there can be no progress towards rehabilitation and no healing from past trauma. We have an opportunity to use this five-year moratorium to reimagine rehabilitation. It costs less to send someone to Harvard then it does to keep someone imprisoned in our state. Think of how much money we could save, how many people could be healed if we were putting that $50,000,000 into education, into therapy, into affordable housing, or even just into food to feed hungry babies. 

Please submit testimony in support of a prison construction moratorium.

Every time I visited my friend, I would look at the sign on Cedar Junction’s waiting room that said the goal of the prison was rehabilitation. Sometimes when I read that sign, I would laugh at the absurdity of it, sometimes I would cry at the false promise of it. Massachusetts has an opportunity to think outside the box. We can come up with another alternative for treating people — people who have harmed others and themselves. But inflicting cruel punishment and torture does not make anyone safer. Instead we can approach solving this problem with true compassion and real rehabilitation.  

PS: For more information, check out this helpful toolkit from Families for Justice as Healing, Building up People Not Prisons, and the National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.

TAKE ACTION: MA Should Prioritize Public Health

Public health image

In 2020, Massachusetts passed a police reform bill that created a standards and accreditation commission, put limits on the use of force, and took other steps to address systemic racism in law enforcement. But left out of the police reform bill was a simple realization: the best way to reduce the incidence of police brutality is to limit the scope of policing.

Too often, armed police officers are called in to respond to situations that they are not equipped to handle, situations that are better handled by someone with an expertise in social work or mental health or someone from the community itself. Shifting such calls away from police and towards alternative response programs ensures that situations do not escalate and that people can best be connected to the services that they need.

The ACES bill — An Act to Create Alternatives for Community Emergency Services (S.1552 / H.2519), filed by Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz and Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa — would direct the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to establish and oversee the Alternatives for Community Emergency Services Grant Program (A.C.E.S.) to increase the availability of non-law-enforcement, unarmed community-based response options for calls to 911.

Can you email your state legislators in support of the ACES bill? 

Want to learn (or do) more? Check out our guide at https://progressivemass.com/aces2021.

Suppor the Community Immunity Act!

Yesterday, the Joint Committee on Public Health held a hearing on legislation to improve vaccination rates. 

Over 15+ hours, the Committee heard from literally hundreds of individuals, including licensed medical professionals at Mass General Hospital and Tufts Medical Center, who espoused toxic disinformation about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, grossly distorted and flatly misstated the content of the Community Immunity Act, and personally attacked the character of any legislators and public health professionals who care about strong immunization policy and infectious disease prevention. 

We need to make sure that the Legislature hears the voices of people who support science and public health. Here’s what you can do. 

Copy the list of members of the Joint Committee on Public Health and send them an email like the one below — Or send a pre-filled email here.

Jo.Comerford@masenate.gov 

Marjorie.Decker@mahouse.gov 

Becca.Rausch@masenate.gov 

Julian.Cyr@masenate.gov 

Patrick.OConnor@masenate.gov 

Susan.Moran@masenate.gov 

Harriette.Chandler@masenate.gov 

Brian.Murray@mahouse.gov 

Brian.Ashe@mahouse.gov 

Paul.Schmid@mahouse.gov 

Kay.Khan@mahouse.gov 

Jack.Lewis@mahouse.gov 

Andy.Vargas@mahouse.gov 

Vanna.Howard@mahouse.gov 

Hannah.Kane@mahouse.gov 

Shawn.Dooley@mahouse.gov 

Jon.Santiago@mahouse.gov 

Dear Chair Comerford, Chair Decker, and Distinguished Members of the Joint Committee on Public Health:  

I write to express my strong support for S.1517/H.2271, the Community Immunity Act, filed by Senator Rausch and Representatives Donato and Vargas. You heard testimony on this critical legislation on Monday, July 12.As we endeavor to emerge from a global pandemic, I urge you to expediently advance the Community Immunity Act with a favorable report.  

We need only look around to see the importance of widespread herd immunity (both localized and statewide) and the need to improve our public health infrastructure. Unfortunately, our current infectious disease prevention provisions leave gaping holes in our public health protections. Every corner of our Commonwealth faces a concerningly high rate of under- or unimmunized youth, threatening our communities’ health and safety. (Please consider these maps: https://www.beccarauschma.com/communityimmunitymap.) 

The Community Immunity Act fixes the holes by creating the statutory immunization infrastructure our Commonwealth needs, without mandating vaccines or striking the religious exemption. I support this comprehensive bill because [insert your reasons here].  

As our elected leaders, please embrace this once-in-a-generation moment to protect generations to come. I ask that you swiftly advance the Community Immunity Act out of the Public Health Committee with a favorable report. Please help to keep all of us safe and healthy, particularly people who are immunocompromised and rely on community immunity. 

Thank you for your consideration and your service to the people of the Commonwealth. 

Sincerely, 

[your full name] 

[your phone number (optional)] 

[complete address – street, city, state, zip] 

ALERT: Take Action in Support of a More Transparent & Accountable State House

Back in January (remember January?), the MA House delayed consideration of a rules package for the new legislative session, instead creating a committee to explore possible reforms.

Unsurprisingly, that committee did little of its work in public, but it finally issued its report last week. Although there are some recommended reforms worth celebrating (Floor votes will continue to be easier to access on the website, virtual participation will not become a thing of the past when COVID is over, and members will get summaries of bills before voting on them), the new rules package that resulted still leaves much to be desired.

Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results it gets. And if we want to see different outcomes, part of that requires changing the rules.

Can you email your state rep today in support of key rules reforms that will make a more democratic and transparent Legislature?

In particular, your state rep should support the following reforms, championed by the People’s House campaign:

  • Amendment #2 (Gouveia): Speaker Term Limits, ensuring that no one holds the office of Speaker of the House for more than eight years
  • Amendment #16 (Uyterhoeven): Public Committee Votes, ensuring that the full record of the yes and no votes taken in committee are made public, rather than a mere tally of the vote
  • Amendment #17 (Uyterhoeven): Adequate Time to Review, ensuring that members have at least 72 hours to read bills before they vote on them and allowing for greater public participation 
Sunlight on Beacon Hill

Also, as the Globe pointed out recently, the House and Senate have yet to agree to a set of joint rules, and your state rep should hear from you about that too.

Globe - No Rules Agreement - July 2021

But The Fight Continues On

Here in Massachusetts, with a progressive electorate, we should already be leading the country in climate action, in providing Medicare for All, and more — but policies that have majority support languish in the State House year after year.

We’ll be joining together with a coalition of progressive organizations to build a movement for change through Incorruptible Mass. Incorruptible Mass has an 18-month plan to raise awareness of the deep problems at our State House and to amplify our demands for progressive policies, building pressure in each district.

Want to get involved? You can sign up here to get involved with your Incorruptible Mass district team. You’ll play an integral part by contributing your knowledge of the people and issues right in your own backyard, engaging people on what matters most to them.  

Call Them Maybe?

Passing a progressive agenda requires engaging people across the Commonwealth to reach out to their legislators. 

So call them maybe? 

Safe Communities Act Phone Banks

The Safe Communities Act achieved major progress last year. Building on that momentum, we’re ready to fight for a victory this session.

But we need a supermajority of House and Senate votes to overcome an expected Governor’s veto. That’s two-thirds of each chamber: 107 House votes and 27 Senate votes.

Help us engage constituents in purple districts, so that swing legislators can be confident they have public support when they take that vote.

Join us for a Zoom Phone Bank tomorrow at 6 pm — or Wednesday, June 23rd — to call voters in swing districts to generate calls to their legislators! Register here—and don’t forget to invite your friends!

There will be a short training at the beginning, log-in information, and lists for phone banking. You’ll need a computer and phone to participate, and you’ll get Zoom information on how to join when you RSVP.

Democracy Behind Bars Phone Banks

The Democracy Behind Bars Coalition is a coalition of advocacy and community organizations, direct service and religious groups, and individuals committed to ensuring that democracy does not stop at prisons and jails in Massachusetts. Specifically, the coalition is working to ensure incarcerated people who have the right to vote have access to the ballot; to ensure that over-policed communities are not stripped of political power through prison gerrymandering; and to restore the right to vote to all incarcerated Bay Staters.

The Coalition will be calling constituents of constituents of key legislators to ask them to ensure that the Jail-Based Voting Bill has an early hearing and is sent to a vote. We need your help!

You’ll get training on how to use ThruTalk, key talking points, and help throughout if you have any questions.

Sign up to Phone Bank:

  • Thursday June 10th 5pm-7:30 pm
  • Thursday June 17th 5pm-7:30pm
  • Thursday June 24th 5pm-7:30pm

Hope to see you on the phones!