We will be viewing a short documentary followed by a panel discussion with myself, formerly incarcerated filmmaker and activist Mac Hudson, legislators Senator Liz Miranda and Russell Holmes, and Senior Attorney from Prisoner Legal Services Latoya Whiteside. Together, we are working on passing legislation to create meaningful oversight and mandate collection of race data in the Massachusetts prisons.
In Massachusetts, we spend over $800 million on prisons, per year. While on paper, the mission of prisons is to prepare incarcerated people for successful rehabilitation and re-entry into the community. In reality it warehouses individuals and inflicts generational harm. Incarcerated individuals are paid $1.45 to $2.90 per day while the ratio of DOC full-time employee to incarcerated individuals is 1 to 1.4.
What is completely missing from my advocacy and efforts to hold the DOC accountable is any racial data. This is because the DOC does not collect that data in disaggregated form for many areas rife with racial discrimination including access to programming and education, jobs and pay, healthcare, classification, and excessive use of force. Furthermore, many individuals are racially misidentified by the DOC.
This is why I filed legislation with Rep. Russell Holmes and Senator Liz Miranda to create meaningful oversight and mandate the collection of race data. Without tools in place to enforce accountability, we cannot address nor eliminate institutional racism in prisons.
Join us to hear from our formerly incarcerated activists on how we as a community can support our most marginalized neighbors in Massachusetts.
