Last week, I was privileged to participate in a briefing for legislators and staff at the Massachusetts State House, in connection with the introduction of legislation to reform the use of solitary confinement Massachusetts correctional facilities. I shared the dais with Senator James Eldridge; Representative Elizabeth Malia; Dr. Stuart Grassian; Attorney Robert Fleischner from the Center from Public Representation; and Organizer Jose Bou, who spent time in solitary confinement. Leslie Walker, from Massachusetts Prison Legal Services, organized and moderated the panel.
For my part, I shared some of the lessons that we learned during the Maine campaign--chief among them that prisons can be better and safer when there is less solitary confinement and when conditions in solitary confinement units are improved. I warned the legislators and staffers that they would be told that solitary confinement was an indispensable tool for prison management, but that they should not believe it--Maine's reform efforts prove that reducing the use of solitary actually can reduce violence and disruption. (More detailed lessons from the Maine campaign can be found in my report, "Change Is Possible").
We will, of course, be watching the Massachusetts campaign closely, and helping out as much as we can.
June 24, 2013 - 10:31am
