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Organizational testimony from 3/20/03 Financial Concerns “Massachusetts spends nearly three quarters of a billion dollars per year on prisons. $44,000 per prisoner, per year in state custody.” “This bill is a modest start in the necessary effort to learn what goes on in prison and to see how this enormous amount of money is being spent, And the great news is that in these troubled financial times [the Citizens Advisory Board] costs nothing.” Leslie Walker, Ex. Dir.; Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services “Prisons are a responsibility of society and need to be more open to citizen oversight than they are at present. By having access to prison administrators, staff, and inmates, the Board will help the DOC with its correctional tasks and can be an invaluable asset to the Legislature by providing an independent judgment and source of information that will assist that body in its legislative functions.” Richard Nethercut, Sibylle Barlow; Alternatives to Violence Project, Inc. Other state agencies oversight boards “In New York and Pennsylvania, private organizations… have the statutory responsibility of visiting and reporting on the states’ prisons, responsibilities carried out by volunteer citizens. In over 25 states with Community Corrections Acts, citizens sit on county level boards along with judges and public officials to help plan and monitor the correctional programs within their counties.” Margot Lindsay, of the Center for Community Corrections in Washington, D.C. Impact on administration, correctional officers, and prisoners “In our experience, prisoners come to PLAP with concerns of their freedom, health and safety within the walls while prison guards voice concerns about order, discipline and gangs. The prisoners often do not understand the fears of the guards and administrators. Likewise, the guards and administrators are not able to comprehend the prisoners’ desires for better healthcare, better standards of life, and safety from other prisoners.” “An independent review board would be able to act as an unbiased and well informed mediator between the interest groups within prisons.” Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project “[The] local boards could be the “eyes and ears” for both the DOC and the Legislature.” Nethercut and Barlow; Alternatives to Violence Project, Inc. “Prisoner discipline and employee safety can be maintained and improved by enabling greater public information about and access to the operations of the DOC;… .” Michael D. Cutler, Esq.; Center For Public Representation. Recidivism “The recidivism rate in Massachusetts is very, very high – somewhere…between 44-60%. What are the citizens …getting for the enormous expenditure of tax dollars? Not just the tremendous expenditure on prisons but the enormous costs of new crimes which include the costs for police, prosecutors, defense counsel and further, longer periods of incarceration.” L. Walker; Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services “The failure to prepare citizens for release leaves many ex-inmates at a risk of recidivism. No doubt incarceration is expensive, but recidivism is even more costly to the Commonwealth.” Kate Cook, Anne Morse Hartner, Paula Berg, Legislative Policy Committee; Women’s Bar Association
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