Letter: Sealing of erroneously denied youthful offender sealing petitions

March 5, 2024
Pamerson O. Ifill
Commissioner of Probation
One Ashburton Place # 405
Boston, MA 02108
Re: Sealing of erroneously denied youthful offender sealing petitions

Dear Commissioner:

We are writing on behalf of youth, community, legal services, and other organizations to request that you direct the Sealing Unit in your office to comply with the law and seal the youthful offender records of petitioners who were previously denied sealing due to the Sealing Unit incorrectly applying the adult sealing statute (G.L c. 276, § 100A) rather than the juvenile
sealing statute (G.L. c. 276, § 100B) to youthful offender offenses. On February 14, 2024, the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled that the delinquency sealing statute (G.L. c. 276, § 100B) “is the proper statute for the sealing of records of youthful offenders.” Matter of Impounded Case, No. SJC-13465, 2024 WL 590605, at 1 (2024). However, our understanding from General Counsel Nina Pomponio is that, except for the petitioner in this particular SJC case, the Sealing Unit will take no action to seal the records of individuals who were previously denied sealing of their youthful offender records based on the erroneous application of the adult sealing statute unless they file a new petition. We respectfully submit that this position is flatly inconsistent with the Court’s decision, a dereliction of the Sealing Unit’s basic responsibility as a government agency, profoundly unjust, and unnecessary based on the Sealing Unit’s practice of treating youthful offender records as sealable under the juvenile statute less than a decade ago.


This position is particularly disappointing when compared to the laudable steps your office is taking to seal adult offenses ending in a not guilty finding to implement the SJC’s recent decision in Commonwealth v. J.F.1 The number of sealing requests related to youthful offender offenses is almost certainly much smaller than the number of adult offenses that ended in a not
guilty finding which your office is now sealing.

The failure to seal these records is legally unsupportable. The SJC’s unanimous decision last week is unambiguous: “We conclude that § 100B, the juvenile delinquency statute, is proper statute for the sealing of records of youthful offenders.” Slip op. at 2 (emphasis supplied). Nothing in the opinion remotely suggests that its holding was limited to the individual youthful offender who brought the petition. To the contrary, its language is not restricted to the case before it. “After review of the text of §§ 100A and 100B and an analysis of legislative intent as to youthful offender adjudications as revealed in §§ 53 and 60A and more broadly, we conclude that the Legislature intended that, in the context of record sealing, youthful offender adjudications be treated more like delinquency adjudications than adult criminal adjudications.” Slip op. at 13 (emphasis supplied). Any reading other than that youthful offender records are to be treated for sealing purposes as juvenile records is baseless.

The failure to seal these records disregards the agency’s basic responsibility to do its job. The refusal to seal these records effectively deprives persons eligible for sealing of its benefits because the sealing unit misled them. Before this decision, the Sealing Unit sent letters to individuals who requested sealing of all juvenile offenses that erroneously instructed them in some instances that they could never seal their youthful offender offenses and in other instances that the longer seven-year waiting periods applied to any felony offense. Sealing is a non-discretionary duty under section 100B if a person has filed a petition to seal and the offenses are eligible for sealing. See G.L c. 276, § 100B (the commissioner “shall” seal eligible
offenses after filing of a petition). The Sealing Unit has a responsibility to correct its errors.

This inaction by the Sealing Unit is profoundly unjust. It deprives Black, Latinx and LGBT+ individuals the opportunity to mitigate the racism and collateral consequences related to the disproportionate involvement of these young adults in the juvenile court system. It also places an undue burden on the public to follow SJC slip opinions. Those with youthful offender records also are a vulnerable population because so many children in the juvenile court are from poor and low-income communities and have families that are, or were, involved with the Department of Children and Families.

This inaction is also utterly unnecessary and simply cruel. Less than a decade ago the Sealing Unit routinely (and correctly) treated youthful offender records as akin to delinquency records for sealing purposes. Attorneys from Greater Boston Legal Services and Northeast Legal Aid recall having past clients who sealed their youthful offender records under G.L c. 276, § 100B after a three-year juvenile waiting period in 2018 or 2019. Moreover, a 2013 chapter in an MCLE publication authored by your office’s then-deputy legal counsel stated that delinquency and youthful offender offenses can be sealed after the same three-year waiting period without any exclusions. 2

Thus treating youthful offender records like juvenile records for sealing purposes is well within the Sealing Unit’s ability, and the relatively short period of its erroneous application of the law suggests there are a small number of persons affected.
Individuals with juvenile court records are as deserving of second chances as adults, and as the SJC has held, less culpable for their past offenses given what is known about brain development. See Diatchenko v. Dist. Att’y for Suffolk Dist., 466 Mass. 655, 660 (2013).

In sum, we urge you to instruct your office’s Sealing Unit to approve all the prior requests for sealing which were denied because of the misapplication of the adult sealing law to youthful offender records without requiring individuals to file new petitions. This is the only way to prevent continuing stigma and harm in the form of collateral consequences related to wrongful denial of these petitions. Thank you for your attention to this matter.


Sincerely,

Pauline Quirion, Director, CORI & Re-entry Project, Greater Boston Legal Services
Mia Alvarado, Executive Director, Roxbury Youthworks, Inc.
Virginia Benzan, Director of Racial Justice Advocacy, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
Hon. Jay Blitzman (Ret.)
Mary Bonauto, Senior Director of Civil Rights, GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders
Stacey Borden, Director, New Beginnings Reentry Services, Inc.
Jonathan Cohn, Policy Director, Progressive Massachusetts
Jessica Collins, Executive Director, Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts
Professor Margaret Drew, UMass School of Law Human Rights at Home Clinic
Ryan Dominguez, Executive Director, Mass CultivatED
Daniel French, Board President, Citizens for Public Schools
Ed Gaskin, Executive Director, Greater Grove Hall Main Streets
Lauren Gibbs, End Mass Incarceration Together (EMIT)
Alyssa Golden, Senior Supervising Attorney, CORI/ Re-entry, Community Legal Aid
Rahsaan Hall, Executive Director, Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts
Sophia Hall, Deputy Litigation Director, Lawyers for Civil Rights
Phillip Kassel, Executive Director, Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee

Paul Kominers and Kristen Gagalis, Anderson & Kreiger
Susan Malouin, Senior Attorney, Criminal Record Sealing Unit, Northeast Legal Aid
Julie McCormack, Director, Safety Net Project, Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School
Dave McMahon, Co-Executive Director, Dismas House
Rev. Jo Murphy, Executive Director, Unitarian Universalist Mass Action (UU Mass Action)
Kayla Hamlett Murray, Executive Director, Bethel Institute for Community Development
Ariel Nelson, Criminal Justice Debt & Reintegration Project, National Consumer Law Center
Matthew Parker, Director, Union of Minority Neighborhoods
Marlene Pollock, Coalition for Social Justice Action
Nichelle Sadler, Executive Director, UTEC Training Center for Excellence
Professor David Siegel, New England Law | Boston CORI Initiative
Leon Smith, Executive Director, Citizens for Juvenile Justice
Rev. Chris Sumner, Boston Reentry Collaborative
Jessica Tang, President, Boston Teachers Union
Lisa H. Thurau, Executive Director, Strategies for Youth, Inc.
Vincent Ware, Greater Boston Reentry Taskforce

cc: Nina Pomponio, General Counsel, Office of Commissioner of Probation

1 J.F. overruled a 1995 decision prohibiting immediate sealing of any offenses ending in not guilty dispositions. See Commonwealth v. Doe, 420 Mass. 142 (1995), overruled by Commonwealth v. J.F., 491 Mass. 824, 831, (2023).

2 See Nicola J. Pangonis, Criminal Records: Sealing and Expungement, § 18.4.4, CRIME AND CONSEQUENCE-THE
COLLATERAL EFFECTS OF CRIMINAL CONDUCT (MCLE 2013 ed.).

A Clean Slate and a Second Chance Shouldn’t Be a Bureaucratic Nightmare.

Testimony for H. 1598/ S.979. & H.1493/S.998

Right now in our state, numerous people have made mistakes in their lives, served their time, and returned to society only to find they are unable to fully reintegrate into our community because, even though they are eligible to clear their records, they have been unable to do so. We tell people they have the right to a clean record after 7 (felony) or 3 (misdemeanor) years but then we make them jump through complicated hoops in order to actually receive a clean CORI. Requiring people to go through a complicated procedure in order to clear their name is unnecessary and hurts not just them but the people of our state. It is time to implement an automatic sealing process.

When our forefathers founded the United States, they embedded the concept of due process in our Constitution which states that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Due process requires that our government develops fair and just procedures. Yet in Massachusetts we seem to have forgotten this fundamental right. How can our state consider instituting a system that constantly punishes someone long after they have served their sentence (and sometimes when they have never been convicted of any crime) to be a fair and just process? Yet, we use CORIs to deprive people of being able to live their lives fully all the time. 

While this is unduly harsh to the people and families who suffer from the never ending punishment they receive long after having served time for a crime, the negative impact ripples through our entire society. By preventing someone from accessing work, housing, training and other vital services, it is not just tragic for that person and their family, but our society is deprived of their work and contribution to our community as well. And, worse, if they end up homeless and without income, the state often ends up paying for their care. The consequences of creating a class of unemployable people isn’t just unjust to them, it’s unfair to the rest of society as well. 

Our founders understood that we need to allow everyone to have access to a fair process. They also understood that once people have served their time, we need to allow them to reintegrate into society instead of creating permanent pariahs, which is what these CORIs do.  We need to return to our foundational principles – not only because it is due process for someone who has violated the law, but because it is also better for our society as a whole. Sealing these CORIs automatically will result in helping to create Justice for All.

Caroline Bays

Progressive Massachusetts

Over-criminalizing Our Youth: How MA’s Own “Crime Bill” Harms the Most Vulnerable Among Us

Prison

By Zoraida Fernandez

Over the past few years, there has been an important and growing societal reckoning with the damage done by the 1994 federal crime bill and the racist legacy of mass incarceration.

However, as a new report from Citizens for Juvenile Justice reminds us, the federal crime bill did not exist in isolation: it inspired a wave of misguided “tough-on-crime” bills in the states, including Massachusetts’s Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA” — Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 269 § 10G), with lasting harm on Massachusetts communities of color, particularly youth of color.

ACCA imposes harsher penalties on people convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm who previously had been convicted of at least one “violent crime” or “serious drug offense.” As this report demonstrates, however, ACCA has imposed unwarranted and draconian punishments on people, especially some of the most vulnerable in our community, including young people of color. And its effects have had devastating and long-lasting consequences not just for those incarcerated, but the communities who bear the burden of losing families to incarceration for extended periods.

How ACCA works to punish people more severely and curtail their rights

When the government convicts a person of unlawfully possessing a weapon, the conviction may trigger consideration of harsher punishment if the person has prior convictions for certain crimes (“predicate offenses”). When there is even one such prior conviction, including ones from someone’s youth (“juvenile adjudication”), ACCA imposes harsher punishments that must be served in state prison. One such prior conviction would trigger a mandatory minimum sentence of 3 years, two such prior conventions would trigger a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, and three such prior convictions would trigger a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years.

Strikingly, the report’s authors found that nearly half of all defendants charged under ACCA were charged under its most punitive provision, mandating a minimum of 15 years of incarceration.

  • ACCA imposes harsh punishment regardless of an individual’s circumstances

In non-ACCA criminal cases, judges consider not just the circumstances of the offense and the person’s criminal history, but also the person as an individual, when imposing a sentence. The defendant is entitled to present contextual information to explain why they committed the offense, information related to the impact of incarceration on their family or community, or any other information that would assist a judge in imposing a fair sentence. ACCA eliminates all contextual information. It also eliminates all opportunities for the criminal legal system to address the root causes of an individual’s repeat offending; it requires judges to simply impose at least the minimum term of years prescribed, no questions asked.  

  • Offenses committed by children can count as ACCA predicate offenses

Alarmingly, even juvenile adjudications—offenses that a person committed as a child—can count as predicate offenses for ACCA. There is a wealth of research indicating the immaturity of children’s developing brains and how this can affect decision-making. Given all this evidence, continuing to consider these offenses to justify enhanced punishments is deeply unjust. 

  • Prosecutors threaten defendants with ACCA enhancements to secure guilty pleas

Federal and state prosecutors routinely use the threat of charging defendants under ACCA as a cudgel to secure quick guilty pleas. When criminal defendants are faced with an enhanced 15-year sentence, the best of bad options for them may be to plead guilty to the charged offense—whether they committed the crime or not—rather than go to trial and risk spending decades in prison. Likewise, the report notes that criminal defense attorneys have had to forego filing motions to dismiss on behalf of their clients because prosecutors threaten ACCA enhancements. Neither the Legislature nor District Attorneys, whose mission is supposed to be the pursuit of justice, should stand for this systemic denial of people’s constitutional rights to their defense and to trial.

How ACCA disproportionately harms residents of color

The report notes that Black and Latine defendants make up over 75% of Massachusetts ACCA cases, despite making up less than 20% of the population. Moreover, ACCA cases are overwhelmingly charged in urban areas, with the Boston Police and State Police alone charging nearly half of ACCA cases during the time period analyzed, with the overwhelming majority of cases involving Black and Latine individuals.

More specifically, ACCA’s predicate drug offenses mean that people of color are disproportionately affected because, as noted in the report, laws criminalizing possession and distribution of drugs disproportionately target people of color. Police and prosecutors are more likely to charge residents of color with serious drug offenses because of overpolicing in their neighborhoods and prosecutorial discretion, respectively. ACCA exacerbates these inequities by using these charges to justify overly harsh punishments.

Similarly, stop-and-frisk policies and so-called hot-spot policing practices have meant that police disproportionately charge residents of color with gun possession charges that trigger ACCA.

And this disproportionality in charging residents of color with gun crimes as compared to white residents is even wider than that involving drug crimes.

Finally, the report notes that documented discrepancies also exist in charging decisions between white defendants and Black and Latine defendants. Prosecutors tend to charge Black and Latine individuals with more severe crimes than their white counterparts for the same or similar conduct, which leads to harsher punishment, including possible ACCA enhancements. The answer, however, is not to increase punishments for white individuals, but rather to decrease unwarranted and severe punishments for all criminal defendants.

Recommendations for action

Given the documented harm caused by ACCA punishment enhancements, the report details several recommendations for action. A few that stand out are:

  • The Legislature should eliminate ACCA. At the very least, it should start by modifying ACCA to enhance punishment only for individuals with three predicate offenses and removing drug offenses and charges of simple weapon possession as qualifying offenses.
  • The Legislature should prevent juvenile adjudications from counting as ACCA predicates.
  • Prosecutors should stop widespread use of ACCA charges and instate policies for its use only under limited circumstances.

The Legislature and District Attorneys’ offices should act expeditiously to ameliorate the harm that ACCA punishments have caused to entire communities.

Making Our Criminal *Justice* System More Just

Figure of Justice holding the scales of justice

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

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

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts. We are a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. 

Five years ago, the Legislature took significant strides toward curbing mass incarceration by passing a comprehensive criminal legal reform package. But there is more work to be done to make our criminal justice system more deserving of the word “justice.”  

We urge you to give a favorable report to the following bills:

  • H.1710/S.942: An Act to Promote Public Safety and Better Outcomes for Young Adults.
  • H.1495/S.940: An Act promoting diversion of juveniles to community supervision and services
  • H.1802/S.931: An Act Improving Juvenile Justice Data Collection
  • H.1650: An Act Protecting Youth During Custodial Interrogations
  • H.1756/S.954: An Act Ensuring Integrity in Juvenile Interrogations
  • H.1494/S.993: An Act Updating Bail Procedures for Justice-Involved Youth
  • S.1049: An Act relative to diversion for primary caretakers

Our testimony will focus on the first and the last.

Raise the Age (H.1710/S.942)

These bills would gradually raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction to include 18, then 19, and then 20-year-olds over a five-year period. The recidivism rate of teens in the juvenile system is less than half of that of young people automatically prosecuted as adults. In the juvenile system, such emerging adults have access to the educational and counseling services that are so vital when they are still developing.

Young adults, especially young adults of color, are overrepresented in our criminal justice system. Reducing the number of young people who experience a system that is not designed for their developmental needs will have a positive impact on such young people, helping them to better be productive, engaged citizens and whole people upon release. And that means stronger, more resilient communities.

Primary Caretakers Diversion (S.1049)

We are grateful for the work the Legislature did to advance racial and gender justice by including Primary Caretakers alternative community-based sentencing as part of the Criminal Justice Reform Act in 2018.

Whenever a parent or other primary caregiver is incarcerated, the children suffer. A criminal record puts up barriers between caretakers and housing, employment, education, and other resources that are essential to allow them to take care of their families.

Passing the Primary Caretakers Diversion bill would build on recent progress and provide more opportunities for healing, recovery, treatment, and resources, rather than punishment.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Today at the MA State House: Raise the Age & Raise the Wage

This afternoon, Committees in the MA Legislature will be holding hearings on bills to bring the minimum wage closer to a living wage and to create better outcomes for youth in our criminal legal system.

Here’s what both are about — and, importantly, how you can help.

Time to Raise the Minimum Wage

From 2013 to 2018, Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition of faith, labor, and community groups, worked to bring the statewide minimum wage closer to a living wage, and given the stagnation of the federal minimum wage, our $15 is something to be proud of. But it’s still not a living wage.

And given the rising costs of health care, housing, child care, and basic goods, it doesn’t stretch as far as it did in June of 2018.

That’s why Raise Up organizing to raise the minimum wage again.

New legislation, filed earlier this year by Sen. Jason Lewis and Reps. Tram Nguyen and Dan Donahue (H.1925/S.1200) would raise the minimum wage to $20 and index it to inflation so that it doesn’t lose value over time. And it would include municipal employees, who were left out of the last minimum wage increase.

Can you urge the Joint Committee on Labor & Workforce Development to advance these bills?

Time to Raise the Age

In 2018, Massachusetts passed a comprehensive criminal legal reform bill, but we have much more to do if we want to make our criminal justice system more just.

One of those things: keeping 18 to 20-year-olds in the juvenile system.

H.1710 and S.942: An Act to promote public safety and better outcomes for young adults would do just that.

When young adults are kept in the juvenile system, they are able to have better access to school and rehabilitative programming. Research has shown that similar adolescents have a 34 percent lower recidivism rate when in the juvenile system than in the adult system.

We know that such reforms work: a decade ago, Massachusetts raised the age of juvenile court to keep 17-year-olds out of the adult system, which has led to better outcomes for youth and for public safety.

Our criminal legal system disproportionately harms communities of color in Massachusetts. Only 25% of Massachusetts’ young adult population is Black or Latino, but 70% of young adults incarcerated in state prisons and 57% of young adults in county jails are people of color. Our criminal legal system is limiting young people’s access to opportunities, exacerbating economic inequities.

Can you urge the Joint Committee on the Judiciary to advance these bills?

Next Week at the State House

See you at the State House? Next week, a number of our coalitions are hosting advocacy days at the State House, a great opportunity to connect with other activists across the state and add momentum to key bills.

Mark Your Calendars! 📅

Tuesday, June 6 @ 11 am at the State House: Transfer Fee Coalition Lobby Day —RSVP here

Join the Local Option for Housing Affordability (LOHA) Coalition on Tuesday, June 6, 11-12 PM for a briefing and day of action in support of Rep. Connolly and Sen. Comerford’s bills H.2747/S.1771 establishing a local option transfer fee to fund affordable housing. Speakers will include advocates, municipal officials, impacted people and housing experts from across the Commonwealth.

LOHA Day of Action

Tuesday, June 6 @ 1 pm at the State House (House Members Lounge) — Polluters Pay & Put Gas in the Past Legislative Briefing

This event will be a presentation for legislators on bills at the center of two Mass Power Forward priority campaigns:

  • For the Make Polluters Pay campaign, (H.872 /S.481), An Act Establishing a Climate Change Superfund Promoting Polluter Responsibility – which we call, for short, the “Polluter Responsibility Superfund Bill”.
  • For the Put Gas in the Past campaign, (S.2135/H.3237), An Act Establishing a Moratorium on New Gas System Expansion. – which we call, for short, the “Gas Expansion Moratorium Bill”

Invite your legislators to the briefing with this toolkit.

Legislative Briefing - Tuesday, June 6

Wednesday, June 7 @ 2 pm at the State House — Youth Justice Lobby Day —RSVP here

Join activists across the state to advocate for bills that would end the school-to-prison pipeline and ensure better outcomes for our youth. The lobby day will focus on bills to keep 18-to 20-year-olds out of the adult criminal justice system, expand opportunities to expunge criminal records, create opportunities for diversion, and more.

Youth Justice Lobby Day 2023

In solidarity,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts

Take Action: The MA Senate is Voting on a Budget This Week

The MA Senate will be voting on a budget this week. Though there are clear reasons to celebrate (such as the inclusion of in-state tuition for all Massachusetts high school graduates and robust funding for regional transit authorities, including funding for fare-free bus pilots), there are ways to make it better.

Take a moment to contact your state senator in support of Amendments #819, #856, and #941 to the Senate budget this week.

These amendments would protect the Fair Share victory, build on past progress on juvenile justice reform, and strengthen No Cost Calls language.

Want to be quick? Call their office and just say “Please co-sponsor Amendments #819, #856, and #941 to the Senate budget this week. These amendments would protect the Fair Share victory, build on past progress on juvenile justice reform, and strengthen No Cost Calls language.”

Prefer to email?



Amendment 819 (Sen. Jason Lewis): Reducing high income tax avoidance

Amendment #819 would require that couples who file jointly at the federal level also file jointly at the state level, as other states do. Right now, Massachusetts is the only state that has a separate income tax rate for high-income filers without either designating lower tax rate thresholds for single filers than married filers or requiring federal joint filers to file jointly on their state taxes. As a result, under current law, some high-income couples who file jointly at the federal level may be able to avoid up to $40,000/year in Fair Share tax by filing singly at the state level. This loophole creates an incentive for illegal misattribution of income between the two members of the couple, necessitating additional tax audits and causing a loss in vital state revenue.

Amendment #856 (Sen. Adam Gomez): Youth Bail Fees
This amendment eliminates the $40 administrative bail fee imposed on justice-involved youth, paying the bail magistrate fee from state indigency funds. The Senate already passed this last session, so this is an opportune moment to do so again.

Amendment #941 (Sen. Liz Miranda): No Cost Calls

I was grateful to see that the MA Senate’s budget proposal includes “No Cost Calls” language that would end the practice of private corporations charging incarcerated people and their families huge fees to make phone calls to and from jail and prison.

This amendment strengthens the language to guarantee access to voice communications for people and ensures that technology like tablets, if they’re already equipped for phone call, can be used under the new law.

Inflicting Long-Term Harm on Protesters and Youth Does Not Improve Public Safety

Tear gas used on protestes

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

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

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the political director for Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide multi-issue advocacy group focused on fighting for a more equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We believe in an approach to public safety that centers the public health and well-being of all. For that to be possible, we must end practices that inflict long-term punishment on individuals for crimes not committed and even for crimes committed, and must ensure that our policies procedures embody respect for the dignity of all.

We thus urge you to give a favorable report to H.4150: An Act banning the use of tear gas by law enforcement and to H.1531 / S.980: An Act relative to expungement of juvenile and young adult records.

H.4150: Banning Tear Gas

The use of chemical weapons is banned in war, and it should be banned on our streets.

Last year, amidst the outbreak of protests following the murder of George Floyd, the president of the American Thoracic Society called for a moratorium on the use of tear gas and chemical weapons by police: “They cause significant short- and long-term respiratory health injury and likely propagate the spread of viral illnesses, including COVID-19.” [1]

The American Academy of Ophthalmology likewise condemned the use of tear gas, noting that it causes “serious eye injuries, including hyphema, uveitis, necrotizing keratitis, coagulative necrosis, symblepharon, secondary glaucoma, cataracts and traumatic optic neuropathy and loss of sight.” [2]

Recent research has also shown that exposure to tear gas among soldiers increases the risk of contracting bronchitis. [3]

The use of tear gas to inflict short-term bodily harm and the possibility of long-term debilitation is similarly a perversion of the justice system: it enables police officers to inflict punishment for crimes not charged, not convicted, and not even committed. Police officers should not be given such extrajudicial power, and we should never be advancing forms of punishment that cause long-term debilitation if we care about the health of society as a whole.

At a time when many politicians and community leaders are discussing how to rebuild trust between communities and law enforcement, how to demilitarize policing, and how to rethink our approaches to and definitions of public safety, banning tear gas is a vital step.

H.1531 / S.980: Juvenile Expungement

In 2018, Massachusetts passed a comprehensive criminal justice reform bill that created an opportunity to expunge juvenile and adult criminal records for individuals whose offense was charged prior to their twenty-first birthday. This was an important step, but the bill limited the opportunity for expungement to individuals with one case on their record. Individuals with even just two cases on their record were ineligible.

These bills would eliminate the one-case restriction and instead limit eligibility by how long ago an individual had their last court case, allowing individuals to expunge their records if their last offense was three years (for misdemeanors) or five years (for felonies) and they have no subsequent court case since. They would reduce the number of offenses which are categorically ineligible for expungement, while preserving prosecutorial discretion. And they would reduce the time to seal juvenile records for non-adjudications and allow for automatic sealing of eligible

records.

A juvenile record can be a long-term barrier to accessing higher education, finding employment, or maintaining housing. Our corrections system should not be seeking to inflict such long-term negative consequences. We should be finding ways to best integrate individuals returning to society and ensure they have the opportunity for mobility, basic security, and meaningful participation in public life, all of which are beneficial for reducing recidivism.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn                                  

Political Director

Progressive Massachusetts

[1] https://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/journal/2020/tear-gas-use-during-covid-19-pandemic-irresponsible-moratorium-needed,-says-american-thoracic-society.php

[2] https://www.newswise.com/articles/nation-s-ophthalmologists-condemn-use-of-tear-gas-and-rubber-bullets

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5096012/