The Patrick administration is set to unveil a Corrections Master Plan tomorrow to deal with what is expected to be a near-crisis in the growth of the state’s inmate population – and that’s before sentencing reform working through the Legislature could exacerbate it even more with a “three strikes” bill for habitual offenders.
According to the plan’s projections, Massachusetts will need at least 10,000 more beds over current capacity in both state prisons and county jails by 2020 to house inmates without any change in policies or sentence practices. More beds will be needed if the roughly 1,000 out-of-state federal inmates being held at various facilities are not removed from the system.
The report, a collaborative effort between the Division of Capital Asset Management and corrections and public safety officials, says simply building more prisons is not a solution. “Building our way out of our challenges is not an option,” Carole Cornelison, commissioner of the Division of Capital Asset Management, wrote in the plan’s cover letter. “Continued budgetary constraints require wise decision-making to do ‘more with less’ but also present the challenge to seek opportunities to better fulfill our mission.”
The master plan calls for at least $1.3 billion in increased capital spending on new prison facilities, but doesn’t say whether a new prison will be needed. If a pending bill mandating life sentences for those who commit three felonies is passed by the Legislature, the overcrowding problem would become even worse, the report says.
Meet the Author
Senior Investigative Reporter, CommonWealth
About Jack Sullivan
Jack Sullivan is now retired. A veteran of the Boston newspaper scene for nearly three decades. Prior to joining CommonWealth, he was editorial page editor of The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, a part of the GateHouse Media chain. Prior to that he was news editor at another GateHouse paper, The Enterprise of Brockton, and also was city edition editor at the Ledger. Jack was an investigative and enterprise reporter and executive city editor at the Boston Herald and a reporter at The Boston Globe.
He has reported stories such as the federal investigation into the Teamsters, the workings of the Yawkey Trust and sale of the Red Sox, organized crime, the church sex abuse scandal and the September 11 terrorist attacks. He has covered the State House, state and local politics, K-16 education, courts, crime, and general assignment.
Jack received the New England Press Association award for investigative reporting for a series on unused properties owned by the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and shared the association's award for business for his reporting on the sale of the Boston Red Sox. As the Ledger editorial page editor, he won second place in 2007 for editorial writing from the Inland Press Association, the nation's oldest national journalism association of nearly 900 newspapers as members.
At CommonWealth, Jack and editor Bruce Mohl won first place for In-Depth Reporting from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors for a look at special education funding in Massachusetts. The same organization also awarded first place to a unique collaboration between WFXT-TV (FOX25) and CommonWealth for a series of stories on the Boston Redevelopment Authority and city employees getting affordable housing units, written by Jack and Bruce.
About Jack Sullivan
Jack Sullivan is now retired. A veteran of the Boston newspaper scene for nearly three decades. Prior to joining CommonWealth, he was editorial page editor of The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, a part of the GateHouse Media chain. Prior to that he was news editor at another GateHouse paper, The Enterprise of Brockton, and also was city edition editor at the Ledger. Jack was an investigative and enterprise reporter and executive city editor at the Boston Herald and a reporter at The Boston Globe.
He has reported stories such as the federal investigation into the Teamsters, the workings of the Yawkey Trust and sale of the Red Sox, organized crime, the church sex abuse scandal and the September 11 terrorist attacks. He has covered the State House, state and local politics, K-16 education, courts, crime, and general assignment.
Jack received the New England Press Association award for investigative reporting for a series on unused properties owned by the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and shared the association's award for business for his reporting on the sale of the Boston Red Sox. As the Ledger editorial page editor, he won second place in 2007 for editorial writing from the Inland Press Association, the nation's oldest national journalism association of nearly 900 newspapers as members.
At CommonWealth, Jack and editor Bruce Mohl won first place for In-Depth Reporting from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors for a look at special education funding in Massachusetts. The same organization also awarded first place to a unique collaboration between WFXT-TV (FOX25) and CommonWealth for a series of stories on the Boston Redevelopment Authority and city employees getting affordable housing units, written by Jack and Bruce.
The so-called “three strikes” initiative in the Legislature stands in sharp contrast to what is going on in many other states like Texas and Mississippi, according to a story in the
Winter issue of
CommonWealth. Those states are trying to reduce their prison populations through early release and recidivism reduction programs. The master plan calls for some of those reforms to be put into place in Massachusetts along with the capital investment required to increase the number of beds.
In addition to policy changes to reduce recidivism and encourage early release, the plan calls for:
- Grouping the state’s 13 sheriff offices into four regions to maximize space and reduce redundancy in program offerings;
- Creating units that could address the needs of several “special needs” populations including women, those with mental disabilities, and those with medical needs exceeding routine care. The latter group includes inmates with a long-term illness as well as an increasingly older prison population that requires assisted-living accommodations;
- Sending more inmates to pre-release or community-based programs.
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