Take Action: Investing in People, Not Incarceration

Friday was the first day of spring, and the new season is always a perfect time to think about second chances and new life. As winter passes, we get more light, we get more greenery, we see more flowers.

It’s a time to think about how our systems can be designed to encourage second chances and new life instead of cycles of violence and harm.

Prisoners’ Legal Services, Families for Justice as Healing, the Keeping Families Connected Coalition, Jane Doe, Inc., Medical Justice Alliance-MA Chapter, Progressive Massachusetts, and Citizens for Juvenile Justice recently teamed up to write a letter to the Senate and House Committees on Ways and Means, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate President urging them to prioritize a package of six critical bills this session. Over 100 organizations have signed on in support and now we need the help of individuals to ask their legislators to make this a priority.  

This platform includes:

  • An Act relative to elder and medical parole (H.2693)
  • An Act to build restorative family and community connection (H.2591)
  • An Act relative to human rights and improved outcomes for incarcerated people (H.2608)
  • An act relative to justice for survivors (S.1256)
  • An act establishing a jail and prison moratorium (H.3422, S.2944)
  • An Act to Promote Public Safety and Better Outcomes for Youths (S.1061)

These six critical legal system reform bills have advanced to the committee on Ways and Means and are well positioned to be acted upon by the legislature this session. Each of these bills represents an opportunity to reduce incarceration, redirect spending to where it is most needed, and improve conditions for particularly vulnerable carceral populations, specifically young people, families, survivors of abuse and sexual violence, and elders. More details on the bills are in the letter.  

Please contact your legislators with a copy of the letter via email, phone, or the form below and ask them to express their support to the Committee on Ways and Means as well as House or Senate leadership.  

Email Your Legislators

108 Organizations Call on Legislature to Sign on Letter for Bills to Help Youth, Families, Elders, and Survivors of Violence

March 2026

Ronald Mariano, Speaker of the House 

24 Beacon St., Room 356
Boston, MA, 02133 

Karen Spilka, Senate President 

24 Beacon St., Room 332
Boston, MA, 02133 

Aaron Michlewitz, Chairperson 

House Committee on Ways and Means 

24 Beacon St., Room 243
Boston, MA, 02133 

Michael Rodrigues, Chairperson 

Senate Committee on Ways and Means 

24 Beacon St., Room 212
Boston, MA, 02133 

Dear Speaker Mariano, Senate President Spilka, and Chairpersons Michlewitz and Rodrigues: 

The 110 undersigned organizations represent a wide array of constituents across the Commonwealth. We are organizations including clinicians, lawyers, clergy, formerly incarcerated people, survivors of crime, and advocates for young people, elders, women, children, and families. We have come together to advocate for the passage of six bills that have been vetted and reported favorably and are now in either House or Senate Ways and Means:

  • An act relative to medical and elder parole (H.2693)
  • An act to build restorative family and community connection (H.2591)
  • An act relative to human rights and improved outcomes for incarcerated people (H.2608)
  • An act relative to justice for survivors (S.1256)
  • An act establishing a jail and prison moratorium (H.3422, S.2944)
  • An Act to Promote Public Safety and Better Outcomes for Youths (S.1061)

We need strong action now from Massachusetts lawmakers to protect children and adolescents, families, elders, and survivors of violence, uphold our civil rights, and ensure resources are directed to communities that need them. 

Massachusetts communities are under attack. This package is critical to protecting families, young people, elders, and survivors of violence and abuse, groups already bearing the brunt of federal attacks on the social safety net and the human and civil rights of our most vulnerable communities. These bills will promote efficient use of state resources at a time when every dollar matters, uphold the civil rights that Massachusetts is already defending, and break cycles of violence by investing in people rather than in costly systems of incarceration. We urge policymakers to include the above bills among your priorities.

To fully meet the moment, this package of bills must be passed this session.

An act relative to medical and elder parole (H.2693) This bill brings the current medical parole statute into alignment with the original intentions of the Legislature. It closes gaps to ensure equitable access to the medical parole process and then creates a pathway to parole review for elders who have already served lengthy sentences. This bill addresses the reality that we have the oldest incarcerated population in the country and will prevent suffering, reduce costs, and maintain public safety.

An act to build restorative family and community connection (H.2591) protects children and families of incarcerated people, and improves one of the most critical mechanisms we have to pave the way for successful re-entry to the community—visits with loved ones. The bill helps families, friends and other important figures in incarcerated people’s lives stay connected by streamlining the visiting process and making it more equitable, addressing racial discrimination in current policy and practice, and reducing the harms that families experience when they are denied visits.

An act relative to human rights and improved outcomes for incarcerated people (H.2608) supports people to re-enter the outside community successfully after periods of incarceration. It creates universal access to productive out of cell time with programming, education and vocational training for all incarcerated people. The bill would encourage re-entry planning from the moment a person enters the correctional system to ensure that we are creating hope, maximizing people’s chances at successful parole, and breaking cycles of violence. 

An act relative to justice for survivors (S.1256) interrupts cycles of harm by allowing criminalized survivors of abuse, sexual assault, or trafficking to seek relief from extreme punishment. The bill creates a fair and consistent process for courts to use critical information about survivors’ experiences to reach informed dispositions. It also expands diversion, alternative sentencing, and re-sentencing for survivors.

An act establishing a jail and prison moratorium (H.3422, S.2944) would pause expensive prison construction and expansion projects in a moment when capital dollars are urgently needed to address housing, healthcare, and education infrastructure issues. A five year pause would allow time to pursue sensible efforts to further reduce the incarcerated population and implement alternatives. Incarcerated people, formerly incarcerated people, clergy leaders, public health professionals, respected advocates, and constituents broadly support a prison moratorium.

An Act to Promote Public Safety and Better Outcomes for Youths (S.1061) would gradually raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction to include 18-20 year olds, so that young people would be tried as adults only after they reach the age of 21. This reform would ensure that young people could get developmentally appropriate interventions towards rehabilitation, rather than exposure to the harmful, counterproductive adult prison and jail system, which is actually criminogenic, meaning it increases chances of recidivism. 

Spending on incarceration continues to increase even as the incarcerated population declines–this makes us all less safe as this excessive spending comes at the expense of investment in communities that need more resources to thrive. 

Together these six bills will help Massachusetts invest its resources where they are most needed right now, and prevent excessive spending on systems that are causing substantial harm with no evidence of public benefit. Massachusetts families are struggling to pay their bills while the Commonwealth spends on average $134,000 every year on each person it incarcerates. Costs per capita range by prison, with the DOC spending well over $200,000 for each woman incarcerated at MCI Framingham, and nearly $600,000 per person to incarcerate the very seriously ill people at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital. 

A quarter of the sentenced population in our state prisons are elders, the population least likely to recidivate and most costly to incarcerate. Access to elder parole and clarifying medical parole would help reduce costs and alleviate the humanitarian crisis created by continuing to incarcerate this rapidly aging population without adequate avenues for relief. Please see a detailed cost savings analysis here. 

The current population of MCI-Framingham is a little over 200 incarcerated women. Many of these women are pre-trial, or may be eligible for elder or medical parole or for sentence reduction if the Survivors Act were passed. Yet, Massachusetts is considering building a $360 million new women’s prison despite the fact that currently incarcerated women oppose this plan. 

We can better promote public safety by increasing access to visits and implementing universal access to programming and education while people are incarcerated. These are cost effective mechanisms to promote successful reentry, break cycles of harm and ensure people remain safely in their communities.

Raising the age at which a person could be prosecuted as an adult, get a CORI and be sent to the adult prison system helps to protect young people from abuse and trauma that derails young people’s access to what they need to reduce recidivism. We must move towards investing resources we are currently focusing on punishing teenagers as adults into developmentally appropriate rehabilitative interventions, currently in the juvenile justice system, that will improve public safety and are more cost effective. Please see the caseload and cost analysis here.  

As the Commonwealth rightly pushes back against federal violations of due process and individual rights, legislators can lead by example and prioritize addressing serious civil rights concerns that persist within our own correctional system.

Recent years have brought costly litigation over use of force, documented instances of corruption, and conditions that fall far short of constitutional standards – problems that these bills directly address. Massachusetts recently settled a class action excessive use of force case for nearly $7 million dollars after incarcerated people were beaten, attacked with dogs, racially targeted and retaliated against after an attack on correction officers. A young man at Suffolk County House of Correction was killed by correctional officers who remain on duty as of this writing, while assaults have continued. Mr. Kenny’s death was preceded by a rash of suicides at state prisons, which still have not been accounted for. These are consequences of long-standing problems that are ripe for reform.

The Legislature did excellent work seven years ago in passing the Criminal Justice Reform Act (CJRA) and more recently in passing No Cost Calls. The CJRA helped to decrease the prison population, yet did not address extreme, racialized, tough on crime era sentencing. Since then we have seen increases in racial disparities and a disproportionately sick and elderly population. 

The CJRA addressed restrictive housing, but conditions at Souza Baranowski Correctional Center and in the DOC’s new segregation units are leading to upticks in deaths by suicide, substance use disorder, and overdoses. No Cost Calls has meaningfully increased family connection, while improving access to in-person visits is still on the table and is a critical next step. Justice-involved survivors of violence, disproportionately women, are routinely erased in conversations about reform while Massachusetts sets out to invest $360 million in a new prison for them.  

More than a decade ago, Massachusetts raised the age of juvenile court to keep 17-year-olds out of the adult system. Since then, juvenile crime has declined, and Massachusetts has seen faster declines in violent and property crime rates than the national average. Not only can the juvenile system absorb this new cohort of young people, the system also has the expertise, policy and programmatic infrastructure to effectively intervene with them. 

It is time to build on the success of the CJRA, no cost calls, and prior juvenile justice reforms and address their unfinished business. 

Legislators can limit the harms of the Trump administration while improving our own local systems and strengthening our communities. These bills are targeted interventions that reflect the specific population dynamics of our criminal legal system in Massachusetts and will address rapidly worsening crises. These bills will protect young people, elders, families, children, and survivors, interrupt cycles of violence, and ensure that the Commonwealth’s own policies and systems reflect the values it is fighting to uphold. We urge you to move them forward without delay.

Sincerely, 

Authors 

Citizens for Juvenile Justice

Families for Justice as Healing

Jane Doe, Inc. 

Keeping Families Connected Coalition

Medical Justice Alliance of Massachusetts

Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts

Progressive Massachusetts

Signatories

ACLU of Massachusetts

Allston Brighton Progressives

Antiracism Working Group of Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley

Asian American Resource Workshop

Beacon Prison Action

Black and Pink Massachusetts Coalition Inc

Boston College Law School Civil Rights Clinic

Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN)

Boston Workers Circle

Cape Verdean Association of Brockton

CAIR-MA

Casa Myrna Vazquez

CELWOP

Center for Community Health Education and Research (CCHERS)

The Center for Hope and Healing

Central West Justice Center

Citizens for Public Schools

Coalition for Effective Public Safety (CEPS)

Coalition for Social Justice Action

Committee for Public Counsel Services

Communities Not Cages

Community Action Agency of Somerville, Inc.

Community Reentry Program Inc.

Congregation Dorshei Tzedek

Criminal Legal Round Table of the UCC

Dignidad/ The Right to Immigration Institute

Disability Law Center, Inc.

Drop LWOP New England

End Mass Incarceration Together (EMIT)

The F8 Foundation

Families and Friends of Individuals with Mental Illness

Family and Community Resources

First Parish in Brookline

First Parish Milton, Unitarian Universalist

The Freedom Unshackled Coalition

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law)

Greater Boston Legal Services CORI & Re-entry Project

Greater Boston Reentry Taskforce

HALT Solitary

HarborCOV

Health in Partnership

High Frequency Academy Ltd., Anthony P. Clay Healing Project

IMPACT Boston

Indivisible Acton Area

Indivisible LAB (Lexington, Arlington, Bedford, & Beyond)

Indivisible Upper Cape

Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center

Justice for Housing, Inc.

Kavod Boston

Law Office of Lisa Newman-Polk

The Life After Prison

Mass NOW

Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Massachusetts Jobs With Justice

Massachusetts Law Reform Institute

Massachusetts Parole Preparation Partnership

Massachusetts Survivors Coalition

Material Aid and Advocacy Program

Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee (MHLAC)

Nashoba Indivisible

National Association of Social Workers – MA Chapter (NASW-MA)

National Lawyers Guild-Mass. Chapter

The Network/La Red

New Beginnings Reentry Services, Inc.

New Hope Inc.

New England Innocence Project

New Vision Organization, Inc

Northeastern University Domestic Violence Institute

Northeastern University Immigrant Justice Clinic

On The Rise

Out Now

PowerUP Massachusetts

Parole Review For All (PRFA)

Portal to Hope

Prison Policy Initiative

Prisoners’ Rights Clinic, Northeastern University School of Law

Progressive Mass Western Norfolk County

REACH Beyond Domestic Violence

The Real Cost of Prisons Project

Releasing Aging People in Prison 

The Remedy Project

Resilience Center of Franklin County

RIA, Inc.

Safe Passage, Inc.

Salasin Project c/o Western MA Training Consortium

The Second Step

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) North Central MA Chapter

The Social Action Council of UU Wellesley Hills

Social Justice Action Committee of First Church in Jamaica Plain Unitarian Universalist

Solidarity Lowell

Spanish American Center, Inc.

SURJ Boston

Transition House, Inc.

Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence

Unitarian Universalist Mass Action

United American Indians of New England

Unlock the Box

Visioning B.E.A.R. Circle Intertribal Coalition

We Are Joint Venture, Inc.

Wildflower Alliance

Women & Incarceration Project, Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights

Young Cape Verdean Club, Inc

YWCA Northeastern Massachusetts

Testimony: DOC’s Policies Should Reflect Its Stated Mission

Thursday, October 16, 2025 

Chair Cronin, Chair Cahill, and Members of the Joint Committee on Public Safety: 

I am submitting testimony on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts. PM is a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. 

We urge you to give a favorable report to the bills from the Dignity and Freedom Platform: 

  • An Act to build restorative family and community connection (Visitation Bill) (S.1720/H.2591) 
  • An Act Relative to Medical and Elder Parole (S.1722/H.2693) 
  • An Act relative to human rights and improved outcomes for incarcerated people (Human Rights Bill) (S.1651/ H.2608)  
  • An Act creating an independent correctional oversight office to facilitate the recommendations of the Special Legislative Commission on Structural Racism in Correctional Facilities of the Commonwealth (REICI race data and oversight bill) (S.1725/H.2636)

The Department of Correction’s website states as its mission to provide “custody, care, and programming for those under our supervision to prepare them for safe and successful reentry into the community.” However, many existing practices run fully counter to such a stated goal. 

Visitation Bill (S.1720/H.2591)

In 2018, the DOC passed severe restrictions on visitation rights. These included limiting the number of individuals on a pre-approved visitor list and the number of times said list can be changed each year, creating a burdensome application for visitors, imposing strict dress codes, and limiting the number of individuals anyone can visit.

Visitation is crucial to the well-being of families, children, incarcerated individuals, and even prison employees. Research has shown that visitation is an effective strategy in reducing recidivism and thereby enhancing public safety. Children of incarcerated parents are less likely to be incarcerated themselves if they visit their incarcerated parents. Visits help incarcerated individuals maintain relationships in their outside community which makes re-entry into the community much more likely to be successful.

Given that visitation enhances public safety, reduces recidivism, and promotes rehabilitation, our prisons and jails should be fostering the maintenance and growth of positive bonds between incarcerated individuals and their friends, family, and broader community—not limiting these relationships.

Elder and Medical Parole  (S.1722/H.2693) 

Despite our comparatively low incarceration rate by US standards,, we are tied with New Hampshire for the highest proportion of incarcerated people over the age of 55 in the country, who experience significantly worse health outcomes than people outside of prison. 

Moreover, older incarcerated individuals are significantly less likely to cause harm when released from incarceration. We are warehousing people as they get older and sicker in ways that make no one safer. 

Moreover, one driver of our comparatively old prison population is that, in recent years, MA has reformed our criminal legal system and moved away from the mistakes of the past. But many Black and Brown people still carry the burden of unnecessarily harsh sentencing laws in the “war on drugs” era. 

Human Rights Bill (S.1651/ H.2608) 

Again, if the DOC understands that its mission is to prepare people for successful re-entry, then its practices and policies should be better oriented toward that goal. This bill recognizes that and would establish universal access to programming, education, and vocational training opportunities, as well as meaningful and productive out of cell time. If we want to cultivate a culture of respect and growth outside the walls, we need to cultivate that inside too. 

Independent Correctional Oversight (S.1725/H.2636)

The Special Legislative Commission on Structural Racism in Correctional Facilities of the Commonwealth documented what is widely known: that structural racism is rampant in our carceral system. A lack of transparency and accountability reinforces this and allows it to worsen. An independent oversight office is long overdue. 

Let’s recognize the value of rehabilitation and reentry and our align systems in support, rather than around creating new cycles of harm. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts 

Just Say NO to New Pipelines and New Prisons

As the Trump administration rolls back progress on climate action, we need states like Massachusetts to be bolder. And that means not entrenching polluting fossil fuel infrastructure.

Eversource Gas is holding an Open House and Listening Session on August 7th at 6pm to take a concrete step towards getting their permits and building a toxic and dangerous pipeline expansion project from Longmeadow to Springfield.

Springfield Climate Justice Coalition is once again calling on organizations in Western Mass and beyond to stand with them as they send a powerful message to the Healey administration, elected officials and Eversource Gas: “We do not want Eversource to build a polluting pipeline that would run through environmental justice residential neighborhoods, and dangerously close to schools and community hubs in Springfield!”.

RSVP In Person (if you live in Western Mass): https://bit.ly/InPersonRSVP

RSVP Online (open to everyone!): https://bit.ly/ZoomRSVPaug7th

If you join in person:

The Springfield Climate Justice Coalition is organizing a dynamic outdoor event before the Open House, calling public attention to the dangers of this project and Eversource’s deceitful and self-serving intent in building it. We will gather at 5:15 pm sharp in Stearns Square (one block north on Bridge St) for a street theater performance and call to action, followed by a mini-march to the Eversource Open House at the UMass Center at Tower Square, 1500 Main St.

The Open House (6 to 8 pm) will consist of a short presentation by Eversource, followed by Q & A. Eversource will be providing food and child care, as well as language interpretation in Spanish and Russian. We need the place packed with opponents of this dangerous project, raising all the questions Eversource wants avoided. Wear red!

If you join online:

Tune in at 5 pm to the livestream of the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition’s dynamic outdoor event before the Open House. Then take action together, writing to our elected officials to pass S.2290 / H.3547 “An Act preventing gas expansion to protect climate, community health and safety”. Eversource will begin their powerpoint at 6:30pm, which we will encourage folks to log into. This is open to everyone who cares about our climate future!

RSVP In Person: https://bit.ly/InPersonRSVP

RSVP Online: https://bit.ly/ZoomRSVPaug7th

Healey Wants to Spend $360 Million on a New Prison. Tell Her No Way.

For years, our friends at Families for Justice as Healing have been organizing against a proposed $50 million new women’s prison to replace MCI-Framingham.

How has Governor Maura Healey responded? By proposing a $360 million new women’s prison.

Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and girls have been clear: what we need is not a new prison, but greater programming for those currently incarcerated, better reentry programs for people when they return to community, and greater community investments in housing, health care, education, and economic security and opportunity.

Think of how much that $360 million could do if it went instead to keeping communities safe and ending cycles of incarceration and harm.

Join FJaH in telling Governor Healey to stop the $360 million new women’s prison with the action toolkit at bit.ly/FreeHerMA.

Call daily between 9am and 5pm only – (617) 725-4005

Email any time using this form: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/email-the-governors-office Sample Email/Script:

“Hello, my name is _________________ and I am your constituent. I oppose your plan to build a $360 million women’s prison. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on prison construction is not investing in people’s wellbeing and will not make our communities safer. Our communities need this money for housing, healing, healthcare, treatment and more. We could actually make Massachusetts a model for the rest of the country by releasing many more women and implementing alternatives to incarceration rather than building yet another prison.”

Letter: “We need to see decarceration, not incarceration”

Norma Wassel, “We need to see decarceration, not incarceration,” Boston Globe, July 10, 2025.

Your July 7 editorial supporting a new women’s prison in Massachusetts lacks important information showing that there is no justification for spending $360 million renovating MCI-Framingham, on top of the annual cost of more than $235,000 per woman (“MCI-Framingham women’s prison needs a modern building”).

The editorial failed to mention that according to the Department of Correction’s own data, the large majority of women there meet DOC criteria for minimum security or prerelease status. Nor did it point out that nearly a quarter of the women incarcerated are awaiting trial or serving short sentences from Middlesex County, which does not have a county jail for women.

While citing a 2022 state-commissioned Ripples Group report, the editorial did not mention that it recommended community residential programs for the majority of women, who present no risk to public safety. No state law requires a prison building, especially for an aging population with complex health needs, and with correctional practices that are often contradictory to treatment.

Even a 2021 Boston Globe editorial stated in its headline, “Elderly prisoners pose little risk, so why won’t the state let some of them free?” It argued for reforms to parole law and a wider use of clemency, but there has been little progress in these areas.

In planning for “an expensive rebuild” of MCI-Framingham, Governor Maura Healey is emulating our current president. The plan needs to be for decarceration, not incarceration.

Norma Wassel

Cambridge

The writer, a licensed independent clinical social worker, works with the Women and Incarceration Project, Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights, at Suffolk University.

MA Passed a Budget on Time. What’s in It?

Let’s start out with the ugly, and then the good and the bad.

The UGLY: Yesterday, the US Senate passed a horror show of a budget to take away health care access and food assistance in order to fund tax cuts for the mega-rich and large corporations, and to create a police state in the US by increasing ICE’s budget several times over. If passed, it will be a disaster for the country and for Massachusetts. If you have friends in other states who have Republican Senators or Representatives, ask them to make a phone call in opposition to the Big Ugly Bill.

THE GOOD: On Monday, the Massachusetts State House did something it hasn’t done since 2016: it passed a budget before the end of the fiscal year.

There are some major victories in this budget to celebrate:

  • Banning tenant-paid broker’s fees
  • $2.5 million in continued funding for an access to counsel program, which provides legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction
  • $5 million for an immigrant legal defense fund
  • Permanently fare-free regional transit authorities
  • Increased funding for our public schools

THE BAD: But there were also disappointments in the budget:

  • Only $1 million in dedicated funding for No Cost Calls implementation
  • Less funding for local aid
  • Insufficient funding for housing safety net programs
  • Insufficient funds for SNAP case workers

Read more about the state budget here, here, and here.

Write to your legislator to express your support for the budget wins and your disappointment with what was left out.

Email Your Legislators

Healey Wants to Spend $360 Million on a New Prison. Tell Her No Way.

For years, our friends at Families for Justice as Healing have been organizing against a proposed $50 million new women’s prison to replace MCI-Framingham.

How has Governor Maura Healey responded? By proposing a $360 million new women’s prison.

Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and girls have been clear: what we need is not a new prison, but greater programming for those currently incarcerated, better reentry programs for people when they return to community, and greater community investments in housing, health care, education, and economic security and opportunity.

Think of how much that $360 million could do if it went instead to keeping communities safe and ending cycles of incarceration and harm.

Join FJaH in telling Governor Healey to stop the $360 million new women’s prison with the action toolkit at bit.ly/FreeHerMA.

Call daily between 9am and 5pm only – (617) 725-4005

Email any time using this form: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/email-the-governors-office Sample Email/Script:

“Hello, my name is _________________ and I am your constituent. I oppose your plan to build a $360 million women’s prison. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on prison construction is not investing in people’s wellbeing and will not make our communities safer. Our communities need this money for housing, healing, healthcare, treatment and more. We could actually make Massachusetts a model for the rest of the country by releasing many more women and implementing alternatives to incarceration rather than building yet another prison.”

Another Budget Takeaway: Fair Share Delivers

One major budget takeaway: The Fair Share Amendment has been delivering even more than expected, and it has proven essential. The Fair Share Amendment has been producing even more revenue than projected, and it has made possible critical new investments in education and transportation. Learn more about its $6 billion in positive impact so far at https://www.fairsharema.com/.

Let Beacon Hill Know: MA Doesn’t Need New Prisons

Although the Legislative session here in Massachusetts has been off to a slow start, I was delighted that one of the earliest hearings was for the Prison Moratorium bill.

This bill would put a five-year pause on new prison and jail construction, a recognition that we should be investing in jobs and education and not in incarceration.

The first step is getting the bill out of committee, and the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight needs to hear from people like your state senator and your state representative. The House is operating on a 60-day timeline for reporting bills out of committee, and that deadline is fast approaching.

Can you write to your state legislators in support of passing the Prison Moratorium?

The Legislature voted for the Prison Moratorium back in 2022, but Republican Governor Charlie Baker vetoed it. It advanced out of committee last session but never made it to the floor for a vote. Let’s get this unfinished business done early.

“There’s No Such Thing as a Humane Prison”

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Chair Collins, Chair Cabral, and Members of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to An Act Establishing a Jail and Prison Construction Moratorium (H.3422 / S.2114).

Let me be clear: there is no such thing as a humane prison. As a famous adage goes, every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does. Our prison system is not designed for rehabilitation, and it is not designed for justice. It is designed for dehumanization and punishment, and no amount of branding or around-the-edges reforms can change that fact. Our prisons and jails are good at creating cycles of trauma; they are not good at creating public safety or community well-being and stability.

With this in mind, we find it deeply misguided that Massachusetts is considering spending $50 million on a new women’s prison. As of January 1, 2024, the population in MCI-Framingham stood at 213. In part as a result of sentencing reforms, Massachusetts’s incarceration rate has been falling, which raises the question: Why expand a system that costs more than $200,000 per person and only causes further harm? 

Studies have repeatedly shown that society cannot incarcerate its way to safety, and the family separation of incarceration and the well-documented inhumane conditions in Massachusetts’s prisons and jails fuel the community instability that is detrimental to public safety. Instead, investments in housing, health care, economic opportunity, and other social supports have been shown to be the true foundation of public safety for all. Think of how much $200,000 per person can do in creating opportunity and building up communities.

The five-year moratorium in this bill recognizes that such alternative visions of public safety exist on the ground, and they merit investment and experimentation and scaling. It provides time for the Commonwealth to do the work of listening to the most impacted communities and to center, rather than sideline, their voices in policymaking.

We were very grateful last year when this committee and this Legislature passed the Prison Moratorium 2022. Unfortunately, due to former Governor Charlie Baker’s veto, it did not become law. We are also appreciative that you advanced the bill out of committee last session. It is just as urgent to finish the job this session, and we urge you to advance these bills as swiftly as possible.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Take action for mothers!

I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day yesterday! It is a day to reflect on the invaluable role mothers and other caregivers play in our lives and in our communities. But not every mother was able to with her loved ones yesterday and not every mother is given the support and recognition she deserves. This is especially true of mothers impacted by the justice system. Massachusetts is planning to spend $50 million to build a new women’s prison to replace MCI-Framingham. As of January 1, 2024, the population in MCI-Framingham stood at 213. In part as a result of sentencing reforms, Massachusetts’s incarceration rate has been falling, which raises the question: Why expand a system that costs more than $200,000 per person and only causes further harm?

Join Families for Justice as Healing and allies across the state in showing what a five-year moratorium on prison and jail construction can mean: bringing women home; building housing and health care centers; creating what different looks like. Here’s how:

  • Join a testimony writing party tonight, Monday, May 12th at 6pm via zoom. Click here to RSVP and learn more.
  • Provide testimony and help pack the hearing room tomorrow Tuesday, May 13th at 1pm at the State House, Room A2.
  • Submit written testimony. If you can’t make it tomorrow, you can still submit written testimony by clicking here.

Thank you for everything that you do for a more equitable and just Commonwealth.

TAKE ACTION: The MA Senate must pass critical maternal health legislation

The clock is ticking. The current formal legislative session at the State House ends in less than two weeks. And there is a lot still pending.

Today, we’re asking you to take action in support of two bills of critical importance to women’s health:

  • A maternal health bill that passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate
  • The prison moratorium bill which passed last session but is still in committee with the clock ticking

The MA Senate Must Act on Maternal Health

Massachusetts families deserve a better maternal health care system. We have waited long enough for greater access to midwifery care, out-of-hospital birth options including birth centers and home births, pregnancy loss leave, public health data collection, coverage for donor milk, and so many more important provisions in this bill. The Massachusetts House passed a comprehensive Maternal Health Bill unanimously on June 20. The Senate needs to take action now — and by July 31.

Can you email your state senator in support of long-overdue legislation to expand access to midwifery care and out-of-hospital birth options?

Tell the Ways & Means Committee: Pass the Prison Moratorium

Let’s be blunt: prisons and jails are among the least healthy places. Despite rhetoric around rehabilitation, they are routinely places of retribution where people are denied necessary care.

Two years ago, the MA Legislature passed a moratorium on new prison and jail construction, but it was blocked by Governor Charlie Baker’s veto.

The organizing hasn’t stopped. Earlier this session, we saw moving testimony from women in MCI-Framingham who were able to participate virtually in hearings and speak directly to committees in the Legislature about why MA doesn’t need a new women’s prison — but instead needs greater investment in supportive services.

The prison moratorium bill is currently sitting in the Ways & Means Committee, awaiting action. Use this guide from Families for Justice as Healing to call the committee and urge them to pass the prison moratorium.