STOP SUFFOLK REGIONAL LOCK UP
https://tinyurl.com/StopSuffolkRegionalLockUp
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Central Booking & Suffolk Regional Lock up
Take Action! Aug 14th Boston City Council Hearing
Extras:
Breakdown of Response From Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department
CENTRAL BOOKING & SUFFOLK REGIONAL LOCK UP
- A central booking process was created within Nashua Street Jail Nov 2023 where people can be booked there instead of a precinct. It’s been created on the false premise that it would “save lives” when in fact it will cause harm and - potentially death.
- For a year and a half, people have been brought to
- Central booking was created under an agreement between the Boston Police Department to arrest and transfer people to Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department custody. It is used to pass liability from the risk of overdose, injury or death of people in custody from one law enforcement department to another. This agreement enables BPD to pay SCSD $150 per person, per day to detain people.
- Central booking is staffed by BPD within the county jail and claims to be a cost saving initiative by “returning police officers to the street”
- The central booking process could become a springboard for the creation of a regional lock up facility - which requires explicit legal authorization, potentially leading to more investments into Suffolk jail and more power and reach for the Sheriff’s department.
- In their MOUs the SCSD notes they gives themselves the authority to offer coerced treatment to people they are detaining who have criminal charges - MA Department of Public Health data show that people who have experienced civil commitment were more likely to die from overdose than those who sought treatment voluntarily
- Opaque & happening behind closed doors with no public process
- Prevents people from finding their loved ones
- Creates illusion of progress in addressing “problems” in the Mass and Cass area and beyond by disappearing people into jails and making it harder to find them
- Illegal
- Only 4% of the 900+ people brought to central booking between November 2023 and August 2024 have been released on bail. Bail clerks are not being called to the central booking facility, which is causing due process infringements for those who are charged & detained.
- Although a Suffolk county regional lock up has been proposed and repeatedly rejected by the legislature in nearly every legislative session since 2013, in 2021 former Gov Baker slipped $1.8M as retained revenue into the Suffolk Sheriff's budget to allow spending for negotiated detention agreements. This has been included in their budget each year since. However, there is no express legal authorization for a regional lock up beyond the negotiated detention agreements. While G.L. c. 126, (s) 4. Of the MA General Law is inferred to be the legal authorization for this lock up - there is no proof that the lock ups in Boston are “inadequate” therefore requiring a lock up facility.
Harming people who have been detained
- 7 people died in Sheriff Tompkins’ custody between 2021 and 2023, including multiple people who were medically neglected after drug use arrests or involuntary commitment for a substance use disorder.
- On 12/27/23 Carl Taylor was transferred to the medical housing unit for observation INSTEAD of being transferred to a hospital for care and was found unresponsive 5 minutes after treatment.
- Reduced recreation time
- Medical unit full and people are being denied access to medical care, including denial of known medications, as the Medical Director only works Monday-Wednesday
- There is no evidence this process will keep people safe and a central booking process has already been implemented and failed in 2001 due to abuses and mistreatment.
- The risk of fatal overdose is 120 times higher among people recently released from correctional settings, largely due to reduced tolerance to opioids and a failure to initiate effective medication treatment, like people are experiencing at the regional lockup.
- To City of Boston:
- Respond to ALL inquiries by concerned organizing groups
- End the detention agreement between BPD and SCSD, no more city money to detain people in jail!
- Stop the sweeps & criminalization of unhoused people - end the survival ban ordinance!
- Stop arresting people for drug use and for being unhoused!
- No creation of coerced treatment structures within Suffolk jails!
- Shut Down South Bay! Close this house of corrections that has been harmful to our community for decades, has killed people and NO replacing this jail with another.
- To the legislature:
- Refuse to approve regional lock up facilities! Revert $1.8M in retained revenue towards non-carceral evidence-based solutions including: permanent low-threshold housing decoupled from sobriety and shelter, the establishment of overdose prevention centers, increased voluntary treatment on demand, and other community-based support.
- Email and call Boston City Council today and demand they push the Mayor’s office to stop participating in the deadly central lockup and criminalization of unhoused people who use drugs. Demand that they instead fund evidence-based solutions.
- Email and call Boston Police Department & Commissioner to demand they stop participating in arresting people and bringing them to Nashua Street Jail immediately!
Find your Boston city councilor: https://www.boston.gov/departments/city-council/who-my-boston-city-councilor
EMAIL CONTACTS
- Boston City Councilors
- ruthzee.louijeune@boston.gov // 617-635-4376
- henry.santana@boston.gov // 617-635-4205
- Julia.Mejia@Boston.gov // 617-635-4217
- erin.murphy@boston.gov // 617-635-3115
- Gabriela.Coletta@boston.gov // 617-635-3200
- ed.flynn@boston.gov // 617-635-3203
- john.fitzgerald@boston.gov // 617-635-3455
- brian.worrell@boston.gov // 617-635-3131
- enrique.pepen@boston.gov // 617-635-4210
- benjamin.weber@boston.gov // 617-635-42200
- tania.anderson@boston.gov // 617-635-3510
- sharon.durkan@boston.gov // 617-635-4225
- liz.breadon@boston.gov // 617-635-3113
Mayor’s Office- 617-635-4500
Boston Police Department- 617-343-4500
- michael.cox@pd.boston.gov
- gregory.long@pd.boston.gov
EMAIL & CALL SCRIPT FOR CITY COUNCIL & MAYOR’S OFFICE
Hi, My name is __________ and I am a resident of _______ (Boston District). I am extremely concerned about the shady & opaque creation of a central booking process out of Nashua St Jail. Boston Police Department is paying the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department to detain people in their facility through a negotiated detention agreement. This agreement was signed a day before the cruel camping ban city ordinance took effect. Our community members are being disappeared into a jail and their due process rights are being violated because they are not given access to bail clerks. Along with community organizations, I am contacting you to demand:
- Respond to ALL inquiries by concerned organizing groups, the Massachusetts Bail Fund, Families for Justice as Healing & Material Aid & Advocacy Program
- End the detention agreement between BPD and SCSD, no more city money to book people into jail!
- Stop the sweeps and end the camping ban ordinance! We want evidence based solutions and dignified housing and care for unhoused people!
Central booking already failed once in 2003 because of rights violations. The camping ban ordinance is not an evidence based solution and is harmful. Will you commit to using your power to advocate for an end to central booking at Nashua Street Jail and reconsider the impact of the camping ban ordinance?
INSERT ANY TALKING POINTS, QUESTIONS, OR SOLUTIONS THAT YOU FEEL MOST RELEVANT
Thank You,
NAME
EMAIL & CALL SCRIPT FOR BPD:
Hi, My name is __________ and I am a resident of _________. I am extremely concerned about your department’s agreement with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department resulting in the creation of a central booking process at Nashua Street Jail. There was no announcement made to affected community members and there continues to be no transparency around this project. Community organizations named below have collected numerous accounts of family members being unable to find people booked into Nashua Street Jail. A records request the Sheriff’s Department responded to confirms that out of 900+ people booked into Nash Street Jail between November of 2023 and August of 2024, , only 4% of those people were released on bail. The lack of access to bail clerks poses a threat to people’s due process rights. I am demanding that your department immediately:
- Respond to ALL inquiries by concerned organizing groups, the Massachusetts Bail Fund, Families for Justice as Healing & Material Aid & Advocacy Program
- End the detention agreement you have signed with the Suffolk Sheriff’s Department now!
We do not want our community members being brought to a jail to be booked! The Sheriff's department already tried to create central booking in 2003 and failed. We demand that your department stop participating in bringing vulnerable populations to the jail!
PRISON CONSTRUCTION MORATORIUM & STOP THE SWEEPS:
Please consider supporting and taking action on the organizing efforts of our community partners FJAH and MAAP who are anchoring the Prison Construction Moratorium and Stop the Sweeps campaign. For more information please see their tool kits linked below :
FJAH : bit.ly/FreeHerMA
MAAP :Stop The Sweeps Toolkit
Social Media
Twitter: @massbailfund @justiceashealing @maapmass @courtwatchma
Instagram: @massbailfund @justiceashealing @materialaidandadvocacyprogram
On November 1, 2023 the Boston Police Department began enforcing the Wu administration’s ban on encampments. Although Mayor Wu claims no one has been arrested under this ban, the City themselves have shared that Boston Police officers have conducted 283 arrests in the immediate area around Mass. and Cass between November of last year and February 2024, according to Detective Sergeant John Boyle. A recent records request shows that 487 people have been brought through central booking from Nov 1st 2023 to May 6th 2024 and out of that 487, only 2 people were released on bail and the rest were held for arraignment (with no info on how long they were held for arraignment). Since November 2023, community members have been arrested for trespassing outside their assigned shelter and for open containers - charges that are included in the ordinance, and for public consumption, possession, or hand-to-hand transactions in the Mass and Cass area - which BPD began enforcing at the onset of the ban. Arrests for the use, manufacture, selling or possession or drug paraphernalia increased by 22%, and arrests for drinking in public went up by 19%, according to a GBH News analysis of police arrest data.
The Material Aid & Advocacy Program, The Mass Bail Fund, CourthWatchMA, and Families for Justice as Healing began observing and hearing from our members that those arrested were being booked at Nashua Street instead of BPD precincts at a shady, newly-created central booking process. We believe this was created specifically to disappear the influx of unhoused people being swept from the Mass and Cass area as well as others arrested on drug-related offenses. We quickly learned people are being denied access to bail, and have inadequate access to healthcare - including psych meds due to “staffing issues”.
County jail population numbers in Massachusetts have decreased in the last seven years, but the biggest drops have been among the sentenced population. Looking at annual snapshots on January 1st from official data, the Suffolk County jail population decreased from a total of 1,413 people in January 2017 to 1,097 people in January 2023. However, in that same period, the pretrial population has decreased and then increased–in part because of the move of dozens of women held pretrial and serving county sentences from three other counties from the women’s state prison, MCI-Framingham, in October 2019 to the Suffolk House of Correction.
Still, many thousands more people churn through the jail on short periods of detention every year, and the vast majority of people held in the Suffolk jails are held pretrial–merely accused of criminal allegations and nominally presumed innocent–and are disproportionately Black and Brown. In the history of regional lock ups and related events (check out this timeline here), there have been many attempts by the Suffolk Sheriff's Department to build up the jail population. We know that this is another such attempt.
After collecting concerns over the past month about the harms this process was creating, including surveying people coming out of Nashua Street Jail/central booking and in our urgency to stop preventable deaths from happening, we sent Mayor Wu, Sheriff Tompkins, and Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox questions and demands. We sent copies to Boston City Council members. It’s an utter disappointment and shame that we have received no response or acknowledgement from Mayor Wu’s office or the Boston Police Department.The only response we received from SCSD was on December 8, from the Sheriff’s Department General Counsel, which included a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with an effective date of October 31. Also included in the SCSD email response was an agreement from September 1, 2023 between the MA State Police (MSP) and Suffolk County Sheriffs’ Department for a similar arrangement for people arrested by MSP to be held pre-arraignment. The weekly count sheets of jail populations show that, in anticipation of this change, dozens of people were moved from Nashua Street Jail to the Suffolk House of Correction between October 30 and November 6.
Let’s break down Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office response:
From General Counsel of Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department Allen Forbes received 12/8/23
I’m writing in response to your correspondence concerning detainees held by the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department (SCSD).
The SCSD recently agreed to house people arrested by the Boston Police Department (BPD) as they await arraignment on criminal charges. That agreement (attached) is similar to one reached earlier this year with the Massachusetts State Police (attached).
- Why would the City of Boston want this process and why would SCSD agree to this? The City of Boston and Boston Police Department want to minimize “liabilities”, specifically medical emergencies, injuries or death in Boston Police Department’s custody. The MOU outlines that Suffolk Sheriff’s Department will get paid $150/per person, per day to incarcerate people and takes on the liability in exchange for money. Meanwhile, the Suffolk Sheriff's department has had 7 deaths in their custody over the last three years and no accountability or changes to their practices.
Due to some misconceptions in your letter, it is important to note what these agreements do not permit. The agreements explicitly forbid the detention of people taken into protective custody by the police under General Laws Chapter 111E §9A. These agreements were not formed to criminalize addiction or to coerce treatment. In fact, the vast majority of the arrestees brought to our facility by the BPD were arrested on non-drug-related charges.
- No booking information or data has been shared with us that Mr. Forbes is referencifng. However, we have seen multiple arrests of people for minor matters like drug possession, trespass, and drinking alcohol in public who showed up overnight at the Nashua Street Jail before being released on personal recognizance, or having their case entirely dismissed at the request of the prosecution, the next day in court.
The Sheriff’s Department has no involvement in the decision to arrest any of the individuals brought to our facility; we simply house those persons at the Suffolk County Jail until they are released on bail or are brought to court. Also, the Sheriff’s Department does not accept arrestees in need of immediate medical attention, as they are transported by the arresting agency to a local hospital.
- The Sheriff’s Department is not “simply housing”, it is incarceration. Nevertheless, the Sheriff’s department has the responsibility to facilitate the process of booking and bail prior to incarcerating a person. The Detention Acceptance Checklist contained shared by SCSD creates a presumption that it is the Boston Police Department’s responsibility to call the bail commissioner before bringing someone to the jail, insofar as the form asks why that hasn't been done yet. Additionally, the language in the form mentions Sheriff will "facilitate on-site bail with appropriate court documentation" -- what does this mean for people pre-arraignment who have yet to go to court? The checklist also outlines that Boston Police Department does the medical screening and we have not heard back from BPD in answer to our questions about how and by whom and what criteria these medical screenings take place.
Please note that none of the people held in the SCSD’s custody are asked to sign agreements “in exchange for treatment or housing” as your letter suggests. Women are held separately from men.
- We will continue to have ears on the ground and will continue to demand transparency from these agencies after hearing from trusted community partners that people being arrested and brought to South Bay HOC may be kept there with an expectation that the city of Boston or Suffolk Sheriff's Department will help them with housing.
The SCSD’s agreement with the BPD keeps arrestees safer by ensuring they are supervised by staff with specific training and experience in monitoring the health and safety of people in custody and that they have access to on-site medical care and treatment that would not otherwise be available to arrestees held in local police lockups. These agreements also support safer communities by ensuring more police officers are on the street and available to respond to calls rather than sitting in their lockups watching the arrestees.
- We fully reject this copaganda. The medical care being offered at Nashua Street Jail is wholly inadequate for the influx of detainees the jail is taking on. The medical director is on site Monday-Wednesday, so there are major gaps in access to prescriptions, particularly for substance use and mental health. We have received accounts of people being held in overflow cells because the medical unit is full as well as people being denied access to their medication. If people do not receive medications at Nashua Street, and then are transported to court and sent to another county on an outstanding warrant, their prescriptions will not follow them to their next location even if they were receiving a stable prescription in long-term community care. More police officers on the street do not make us safer, cost more of taxpayer’s money, and increase the possibility of surveillance and arrest into this horrible process that the city and Suffolk Sheriff’s Department are colluding on.
Criminalization is costly and counterproductive - yet it is always funded! We demand an end to the central booking & regional lock up and criminalization of our community and for resources to be diverted and invested in the evidence-based solutions our community needs: permanent low-threshold housing decoupled from sobriety and shelter, the establishment of overdose prevention centers, and increased voluntary treatment on demand. Our solutions are possible!