estimony in support of Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa’s, bill HD.4963/H.4652
An Act Regarding Decarceration and COVID-19

Thank you for taking testimony in support of this critical bill during this terrible crisis.

My name is Caroline Bays, and I am testifying on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts as well as on behalf of those who are behind bars and do not have the ability to testify for themselves.

This has been a hard time for our state. We all have found this time difficult and sometimes even scary. Imagine if you had to live through this without any control of your surroundings. Imagine if you had to live with your ability to stay safe completely in the hands of others -- and imagine if those others are people who have previously shown no indication that they care about your welfare or well-being. This is a truly scary time for men and women in the prisons in Massachusetts.

In addition many in prison are more vulnerable to this disease. 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.  Well, that is what the state needs to do. And that means releasing as many people as possible in order to ensure that these tragic deaths do not continue and spiral out of control.

The following testimony was submitted to the Joint Election Laws Committee.

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Chairman Finegold, Chairman Lawn, and Members of the Joint Election Laws Committee,

As an organization committed to strengthening our democracy and promoting racial and social justice in our Commonwealth, Progressive Massachusetts strongly supports S.12, a proposal for a legislative amendment to the Constitution relative to voting rights and urges swift action.

In recent years, states around the US have started to realize that the decades-long phenomenon of mass incarceration was a moral, economic, and public safety failure. It destroyed communities, strained budgets, and made us no safer.

In January of 2017, Progressive Massachusetts unveiled our legislative agenda for the 190th legislative session -- 17 items for 2017 (and 2018). As we near the end of the year -- and the start of the next legislative session, it’s the perfect time to take stock of how the various bills fared.

Clear Victories

Reproductive Rights

The ACCESS bill, which updates MA’s contraceptive coverage equity law to require insurance carriers to provide all contraceptive methods without a copay, passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature and was signed by the Governor.

Democracy

Massachusetts became the 13th state to adopt Automatic Voter Registration. In this reform pioneered by Oregon in 2015, eligible voters who interface with select government agencies (here, the RMV or MassHealth) are automatically registered to vote unless they decline. With more than 700,000 eligible citizens in MA unregistered, AVR will increase the accuracy, security, and comprehensiveness of voter rolls.

The bill also enrolls Massachusetts in Electronic Registration Information Center, a coalition of states founded by the Pew Research Center that enable states to synchronize their voter rolls. ERIC has increased the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the voter rolls in participating states.

[Note: The original bill included smaller social services government agencies as well. The final bill allows for their later inclusion but focuses on the two largest sources of possible new registrants.]

PDF VERSION - Hard work and advocacy paid off with the release of the criminal justice conference committee’s new CJR bill. This comprehensive bill addresses almost every issue affecting our criminal justice system. When we began this process in 2016, we could not have imagined the setbacks and the hard work that lay ahead. But through the near destruction of the bill when the Council on State Governments process collapsed, the bill--like a phoenix from the ashes--was revitalized, and the legislation emerged even stronger and more sweeping than advocates expected.

Below is a synopsis of the proposed bill. I included the main ask from advocates for reform and what was in the final bill.

The following letter was drafted by Caroline Bays and Jonathan Cohn from the PM Issues Committee and transmitted to the CJR conferees: 

House Chairwoman Claire Cronin, Joint Committee on the Judiciary

Senate Chairman William Brownsberger, Joint Committee on the Judiciary

Majority Leader Ronald Mariano

Chairwoman Cynthia Creem, Senate Committee on Bills in Third Reading

Ranking House Minority Member Sheila Harrington, Joint Committee on the Judiciary

Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr

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January 17, 2018

Dear Members of the House-Senate Conference Committee:

The Massachusetts incarceration rate, while low compared to other states, is three to four times higher than that of European countries. In fact, there are only seven countries with a higher incarceration rate than Massachusetts.

There has been a growing consensus that the policies of the “tough on crime” era were misguided. They did not make us safer, but instead entrenched lasting racial and economic inequities. Studies have shown that high levels of incarceration have devastating consequences for minority communities, including an increase in crime, poverty, and homelessness. They prevent individuals and communities from thriving and living up to their full potential and make cherished rhetoric of “liberty and justice for all” ring hollow.

We are grateful to the House and the Senate for their exhaustive work on Criminal Justice legislation. Both the House and Senate bills have many excellent provisions, and in the following letter, we identify (a) essential provisions in both bills that should be included in a final Conference report, (b) places where one bill or the other was superior and whose provisions merit inclusion, and (c) a few places where the bills stray from their intent. The subsequent recommendations will best help to achieve our mutual goal of ending mass incarceration in Massachusetts.

Mon, Tue, Wed of this week (Nov. 13-15), the Massachusetts House will start voting on a comprehensive criminal justice reform. The House bill, as expected, is not as comprehensive or as progressive as the Senate bill.

We must work to make it better before the vote on its final form: we must contact our State Representatives, NOW, loudly, and in as large numbers as we can. 

The House will be voting on amendments Monday through Wednesday. 

It's vitally important representatives hear that you want to see a stronger bill that delivers on the promise of comprehensive criminal justice reform. Mass incarceration has proven socially a socially and economically damaging phenomenon, and it's time for Massachusetts to move beyond it.

Email/call your Representative TODAY (a copy/paste email script is here: progma.us/cjr-house-2017nov) and tell them to support/oppose the amendments below (when you're done--take a sec and let us know you called/contacted your Rep: it helps us know where we need to target more!). We'll be tracking the progress on these measures in the spreadsheet below. 

 Download our hypertext, navigable, annotated s2185 roll call PDF packet, here: progressivemass.com/cjr-sen-rollcallpacket.

In the wee hours of Oct. 27, the State Senate passed a historic Criminal Justice Reform bill 27 to 10 (See our "first take" analysis here).

Although four Democrats--Eileen Donoghue, Anne Gobi, Kathleen O’Conor Ives, and Mike Rush--joined the Senate’s six Republicans in voting NO, Senate Democrats still achieved the magic number of 27, the number necessary to override a veto from Governor Charlie Baker.

Progressives fought hard and were able to get a number of big wins. But DAs and police departments also fought hard against true reform (and won some things to). They will be fighting hard again as the House prepares to vote. So should we. 

CJR Roll Calls

The Senate considered 163 amendments to the underlying reform bill. Many were adopted or rejected by voice vote, or simply withdrawn. But those which were roll called offer a great window into whether legislators are fighting for progressive values or not. When the question “Whose side are you on?” gets asked, you can see how they respond.

As we have described before, roll call votes on amendments are the only record of an individual legislator’s vote. In taking the measure of your legislator, these are the tools before us, and the limitations are obvious: when not all votes are individually recorded (voice vote/not roll called), the picture will be skewed by what roll calls we DO have. The question as to why the Legislature does not routinely take roll calls is an important one, and it gets to issues of transparency and individual voters’ ability to hold legislators accountable to their votes. There were some terrible provisions that passed (or failed) only on voice vote. There were some good ones that passed (or failed) only on voice vote, too. We can’t tell you how your legislator voted on them because we don’t have the record. (But you could ask!).

Methodology

In the Report Card below, we scored 17 amendments and the vote on the final bill. We did not include amendments with unanimous or nearly unanimous votes without a real stand for progressive values or against misguided “tough on crime” fear-mongering.

Overview of Results

Five senators consistently voted to keep a strong bill intact and further improve it: Joe Boncore, Sonia Chang-Diaz, Cindy Creem, Jamie Eldridge, and Pat Jehlen have a perfect score on our CJR report card. If you live in their district, you should thank them. (If you don’t, tell your own Senator how much you appreciate their leadership!)

Following them were a dozen Democrats with (mostly) As or (some) Bs: Mike Barrett, Will Brownsberger, Majority Leader Harriette Chandler, Julian Cyr, Sal DiDomenico, Linda Dorcena Forry, Cindy Friedman, Adam Hinds, Jason Lewis, Tom McGee, Senate President Stan Rosenberg, and Ways & Means Chair Karen Spilka. They almost always held the line and should be thanked as well.

Like the Senate’s six Republicans, eleven Democrats worked hard for their F, voting for the progressive position less than half the time: Michael Brady, Eileen Donoghue, Anne Gobi, Joan Lovely, Michael Moore, Kathleen O’Connor Ives, Marc Pacheco, Michael Rodrigues, Mike Rush, Walter Timilty, and James Welch. That said, Brady, Lovely, Moore, Rodrigues, Timilty, and Welch still voted for the final bill (unlike Rush, Gobi, O’Connor Ives, and Donoghue--Pacheco was absent) and deserve your thanks for that.

And, though several Senators (many of whom have been backed by progressive forces in their elections and have cited their liberal cred when it’s easy and useful) were disappointing in their failure to stand up at critical junctures, ultimately, it is a testament to the Senate leadership as well as the work of advocates (like YOU) that efforts to roll back the progress in the bill were defeated

So what actually happened in all those amendments? Read a deep dive into what they were all about here, and find out how your senator voted below.

So... You called/emailed Monday. It's Tuesday. The field is shifting: we need you to call/email again! Debate is unfolding now. Big decisions are being made: for better and worse. Find your state rep here.

 UPDATE 11/14 11AM < click to go right to the prefilled email 

Hello! We are at the stage of #AmendmentActivism when we shift away slightly from itemizing individual amendments: some have been withdrawn. Some have passed, been rejected. Deals are being made behind closed doors. Horses are being traded. 

As things combine and disappear and trade and re-emerge in further amendments... We need you to reach out again and RE-EMPHASIZE the principles we want to see in a strong criminal legal system reform bill: 

- SMART SENTENCING REFORMS: Eliminate mandatory minimums, no new man. mins, decriminalize addiction, no new penalties, eliminate/no new "special penalties" like school zones or assault on police (all of these disproportionately affect the poor and communities of color) 

- EXPANSION OF STATE SURVEILLANCE POWERS: these proposals go so far as to specifically enable prosecutors to target people involved in street-level drug distribution and solicitation (yes, drugusers) for wiretap surveillance. No. No to all of it. 

- REFORM WRONG-HEADED "TOUGH" ON JUVENILES policies: science and data show--harsh penalties for children and young adults is damaging, and works against the goal of re-integrating youth into our communities. 

- REFORM THE CRUEL AND UNUSUAL: Solitary confinement is abused and abusive and causes tremendous psychological harm that will need to be addressed for years and years after. MA solitary rules are appallingly out of date and have disturbing lack of oversight. Fix it. 

- REDUCE COSTS/PENALTIES associated with an individual's encounters with the legal system: it is a vicious cycle that disproportionately hurts the poor. (NB: with the withdrawal of Amdt 197, our best opportunity is already off the table. But we should remember this is a principle and an aim). 

Make Your Outreach ASAP!

Adapt ur email template for your state rep, here (UPDATED 11/14)....

(If the 'prefilled email' doesn't work: a cut/paste version lives here: progma.us/cjr-house-2017nov)

On these contentious issues, our advocacy must be consistent and continual. 

This is Happening NOW.

Debate and Voting is sched'd for M, T, W. PLEASE DO NOT LET THIS SLIP BY. Contact Your State Rep Now(< click for email template or c/p from here: progma.us/cjr-house-2017nov), and help 2 other people around you do the same! )

 (We learned some good (and some hard) lessons from the 10/27 Senate Bill...read up after sending your email/making your call!)

When I talk to allies on Beacon Hill, they say that criminal justice reform is going to be one of the top issues the Legislature takes up this fall. But whether it will be real reform, or just tinkering around the edges, remains to be seen. Massachusetts needs to turn the tide on a failed “tough on crime” paradigm that has wreaked havoc on communities and fueled mass incarceration without making us any safer.

And that’s where you come in.

Representative Claire Cronin, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, is planning to meet with every state rep about the bills in her committee. She needs to hear from her constituents and her fellow representatives that Massachusetts wants real reform.

Call your state representative today and ask them to tell Chairwoman Cronin that Massachusetts wants bold criminal justice reform this fall.

In recent years, Massachusetts has made some progress on criminal justice reform, including the legalization of marijuana, the reduction of sentences for some drug related crimes, and raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction to 18. However, the work is far from finished, so to inform us of what is at stake and about pending legislation, Progressive Watertown, Progressive Newton, Jobs Not Jails, and Watertown Citizens for Black Lives cosponsored the public forum "Why Criminal Justice Reform Matters." It was held Saturday, May 6th, at the Belmont-Watertown United Methodist Church.