COVID Developments in New England

Dec 25, 2020
Eminetra

Massachusetts prisoner advocates have doubled their legal efforts to release prisoners from state prisons due to a coronavirus pandemic. The Massachusetts Prisoner’s Legal Affairs Bureau filed Thursday at the Saffolk High Court, where the State Department put prisoners under house arrest and furled so that the rest of the prisoners could be safely and socially distanced behind the bar. Argued that it needed to be released to medical parlors and other legal measures.

The organization submitted reports from about 40 prisoners about the congestion of state prisons and the fear of being infected with COVID-19 to intensify their complaints. The Prisoner’s Legal Affairs Bureau also said that four prisons (MCI-Norfolk, MCI-Shirley, NCCI Gardner, and MCI Concord) accounted for almost all of the more than 1,000 new cases of the virus in the correction system since October 29. It was.

Elizabeth Matos, executive director of the organization, said in a statement Thursday, “We didn’t create an opportunity to distance ourselves inside the walls of the prison, resulting in out-of-control outbreaks, mass illness and preventable deaths.” Said.

The State Department refused to comment on the proceedings, but said its inmate population had declined by more than 1,200 since March and the facility is at 61% of its capacity.