Massachusetts DOC May Double Bunk To Make Room
The number of inmates in Massachusetts prisons is projected to reach about 12,000 next year for the first time, prompting the head of the prison system to call for sentencing changes that ease overcrowding and to proceed with a controversial plan to double-bunk inmates at a maximum-security facility.
About two weeks short of his one-year anniversary as commissioner of the Department of Correction, Harold W. Clarke said last week that he hopes Governor Deval Patrick reintroduces legislation to reform “mandatory minimum” sentences, which Clarke said have led to a surge in inmates, many with no history of violence. “We’ve been really concerned with mandatory sentencing laws,” Clarke, 57, said at the department’s headquarters here. “We don’t want people backed up in prison that are not posing a risk to the community at large.”
On Nov. 3, the state’s 18 prisons held 11,380 inmates, putting them at 44 percent above capacity, Clarke said. The number is projected to grow by 5 to 7 percent next year, which would put the population at between 11,949 and 12,176. The prison population declined steadily from 10,990 in 1999 to 9,825 in 2005, but it has surged since then, according to department statistics. The totals include convicted offenders, people awaiting trial, and individuals committed involuntarily – even though they have finished their sentences – because they still pose a danger, such as some sex offenders.
With crime rates remaining relatively stable, Clarke said, the main reason for the surge is mandatory-minimum sentences passed by Massachusetts since the 1980s. Many of the laws were approved as part of a harsh nationwide crackdown on drug offenses, but a growing number of judges, defense lawyers, prison administrators, and advocates for prisoners say they often do more harm than good. As of Sept. 22, about 1,917 inmates were serving a mandatory minimum sentence for a drug offense, said Diane Wiffin, a prison system spokeswoman. Those inmates are ineligible for parole and are forbidden from participating in work-release programs or halfway houses that could ease overcrowding …
In the meantime, Clarke is moving forward with a plan to double-bunk some inmates at a maximum-security prison. As early as year’s end, he said, he plans to move 400 inmates from maximum-security MCI-Cedar Junction at Walpole to Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. Each of the 400 inmates would share a cell with another prisoner at Souza-Baranowski, which has 1,028 inmates. Cedar Junction would become a medium-security prison that takes in new inmates until they are classified, a role currently played by MCI-Concord. And Old Colony Correctional Center, a medium- and minimum-security prison in Bridgewater, would mostly house inmates with diagnoses of mental illness.
“There are some inmates out there who are going to make a choice whether to accept a roommate or kill their roommate,” he said. “That’s not an exaggeration …We don’t have many options – one, releasing offenders, and two, building more capacity – and I’m not sure that either of those are now palatable,” he said.
More details in the article at the Boston Globe.