From Dig Boston:
For more than a year, the Massachusetts Department of Correction has been trying to build a new women’s prison. And for more than a year, activists with Families for Justice as Healing, an organization focused on ending the incarceration of women and girls, have pushed back on the project, pointing out issues with how the state is trying to get it off the ground, and in the process leading to officials twice pulling plans after FJH criticized them as trying to circumvent public scrutiny.
Now, the DOC has a third plan to get the prison off the ground, and as with the previous proposals, the department is promising the new facility will be constructed with “trauma-informed design to create welcoming and therapeutic spaces.” Families for Justice as Healing is fighting this proposal as well, arguing that prisons with “trauma-informed” care are not possible in the first place, and that the DOC is ignoring the voices of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women who are advocating for community-based rehabilitation.
Prison reformers say this is a battle with consequences that could last for decades—with the state building a new prison to house children and grandchildren, instead of moving to decarceration. Continue reading >>>
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