Advocates ask court to release inmates as COVID-19 sweeps through state prisons

Dec 24, 2020
Boston Globe
By Laura Crimaldi

Prisoner health conditions ‘worse now than at any time since the pandemic began’

One of every six Massachusetts prison inmates — and hundreds of correctional workers — have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last six weeks, new figures show, underscoring prisoners’ vulnerability and spurring new efforts to free some of them.

Late Wednesday, lawyers in a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Correction made a dramatic plea in court filings to reduce the inmate population, sharing searing accounts from prisoners about COVID-19′s march through crowded correctional facilities.

One prisoner at MCI-Norfolk reported being quarantined with about 76 other men inside a formerly abandoned building that had broken sinks, one of which was clogged by an inmate’s bloody vomit. Prisoners at other facilities shared more stories of fear and panic.