Rally for Reform

1. Looking forward to a large turnout. See you there.

2. I’m very supportive of your efforts, Will. Thank you for sponsoring this legislation. I’ll be there on Thursday.

3. Thank you senator brownsberger for your support in the prison reform goals for Massachusetts. Prisons are overcrowded Nationwide and some governors refuse to look at rehabilitated offenders. It is something that is so needed because people do make mistakes and deserve another chance. Taxpayers are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to see prisoners caged with little to no meaningful rehabilitative programs. Prisons need to be replaced with long-term residential facilities that address the real problems resulting in incarceration in the first place and I hope someday that will also be addressed. Thank you

4. So glad that this rally is being held at the most convenient time for the people who ultimately have to pay for these programs. You know, the people who have jobs in the dreaded private sector. Good calculated move.

   1. The timing coincides with formal senate sessions so that senators from across the state will be available.

      But I apologize for the inconvenience for you — if you’d like to have a discussion at a more convenient time for you, happy to show up. Just give my office a call.

5. This is an excellant idea. I will see you there. We need to show support It’s time for Massachusetts to get smart on crime and get into the modern era on reform as other states have done.

6. Wish I could be there.

7. Thanks, here are my three cents.

   I did go to the rally to try to get a better understanding of the issue and came away thinking it seems like a pretty comprehensive overhaul, including a restorative justice component. What impressed me most was Senator Rosenberg’s remark that after you are sentenced, removal from society is THE punishment and there isn’t a requirement for more. Security yes, punishment no, I’ve felt this for a long time. The comments made by another Senator regarding the Commonwealth being addicted to collecting fees from low level criminal justice clients, often poor where also well taken. My opinion of the prisoner advocates were mixed but points I agree with wholeheartedly are the need for greater access by inmates to people beyond the walls including media and more inmate and ex-inmate involvement in these discussions. Reading between the lines there seems to be real roadblocks in coming to terms with solitary confinement. Sounds like something in need of more understanding and a creative solution. I think removing mandatory sentencing for all low level drug crimes reflects some naivete of the power that drugs and the money from trading in them has over people and how destructive the use and trade are to the community itself. An expensive drug habits with drugs that erode one’s empathy is not victimless. On the other hand, I think the mandatory sentencing laws are too restrictive. Never being a lawyer or a defendant I always thought mandatories just restricted a judges sentencing options, but I see that it effects parole eligibility and community service time and work release eligibility. I think the X year minimum is probably a deterrent to a drug dealer deciding on what he’ll sell next but the other restrictions seem overly harsh.

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