Hi all, we are planning to hold a lobby day at the State House on April 15th between 1-4:30pm on three bills related to conditions of confinement in jails/prison and decarceration.  

A lobby day is a day when advocates and community members come to the State House and visit legislative offices to try to speak with legislators and legislative aides about why particular bills are important to them. This lobby day is cohosted by: Families for Justice as Healing, Prisoners’ Legal Services of MA, Keeping Families Connected Coalition, Massachusetts Against Solitary Confinement, Progressive MA, The Campaign to End Life Without Parole, and Drop LWOP New England

People who are in prison and jail need meaningful pathways to release, conditions of confinement that support personal growth and prepare them for re-entry, and to strengthen their connections with family and community. We hope that the lobby day will help illustrate these needs to legislators. 

If you are interested in joining us, please fill out this form ASAP and ideally before Monday, March 31st  so that we can identify which volunteers will visit which legislative offices. If you have never participated in a lobby day, don't worry - we will be providing training on lobby day logistics, how to speak to legislators and staffers, and talking points on each bill. You can find factsheets on these bills on the PLS website at https://plsma.org/what-we-do/legislation/. 

If you have additional questions about lobby day, please email PLS Legislative and Policy Director Jesse White at jwhite@plsma.org.

An Act relative to elder and medical parole (H2693/S1722) Senator Miranda, Reps. Sabadosa and Uyterhoeven: 

We have a crisis of aging and sickness in the commonwealth’s prisons, with our correctional system too often becoming expensive, high security, nursing care for a population that has already served decades of time behind bars, and which poses little to no risk to public safety. This bill creates a safe and reasonable pathway for our elders to be considered for parole once they have reached the age of 55 and served 15 years or half of their sentence, and makes needed changes to our medical parole system to ensure that people who are terminally ill and permanently incapacitated have access to medical parole as our legislature originally intended.

An Act to build restorative family and community connection (H2591/S1720) Senator Miranda, Rep. Decker:

One of the cruelest aspects of imprisonment is family separation, with mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters paying the price alongside their incarcerated loved ones. This bill protects access to daily visits, eliminates draconian caps on the number of visitors, creates child-friendly spaces, and reduces discrimination. Instituting a fair process to facilitate visits sustains families during periods of incarceration and promotes successful re-entry.

An Act relative to human rights and improved outcomes for incarcerated people (H2608/S1651) Sen Creem, Rep Fluker-Reid:

Even while prison and jail populations decline, and budgets increase, the prison system continues to prioritize punishment and deprivation over supporting people to work towards personal growth and successful re-entry into the community. Right now, one out of every six people in state prison is in maximum security, with little to no access to programming, educational, and vocational training. We are setting people up for failure on release and contributing to cycles of violence and harm. This bill would establish universal access to programming, education, and vocational training opportunities, meaningful and productive out of cell time, and ensure that people’s human rights are protected while they are behind prison walls.