GBHBy Esteban BustillosApril 20, 2022 Advocates are calling for the end of a Massachusetts policy that allows men to be put in correctional facilities when they are involuntarily commited for treatment of substance use disorder. The practice, which is allowed under a statute known as Section 35, ended in 2016 for women but is still […]
Mass. legislators debate whether to fund addiction programs that lock people up
WBURBy Deborah BeckerApril 21, 2022 Massachusetts lawmakers are debating whether to continue supporting programs that put people inside jails and prisons for addiction treatment. Both Gov. Charlie Baker and the House leadership have proposed setting aside roughly $23 million in the budget for such addiction programs. But State Rep. Ruth Balser has filed budget amendments […]
Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts Appoints Dr. Alice Bukhman as New Health Care Advocate
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BOSTON, December 28, 2021 – Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts (PLS) is pleased to announce the employment of Dr. Alice Bukhman as the organization’s first professional healthcare advocate. The Healthcare Advocate position is new to PLS. In her part-time role, Dr. Bukhman is engaged in both individual advocacy and in helping the […]
Health Experts, Medical Providers Urge Health-Centered Approach to Boston’s Addiction Crisis
Health Experts, Medical Providers Urge Health-Centered Approach to Boston’s Addiction Crisis For immediate release: October 6, 2021 (BOSTON) In a letter sent today to public officials and Boston mayoral candidates, public health experts and medical providers urged public officials to take a health-centered approach to the growing humanitarian crisis in the area of Massachusetts Avenue […]
Some advocates and experts push back against sheriff’s Mass. and Cass proposal
SOME ADVOCATES AND EXPERTS PUSH BACK AGAINST SHERIFF’S MASS. AND CASS PROPOSAL The Boston GlobeSeptember 27, 2021By Danny McDonald Some civil rights advocates and public health experts are calling the Suffolk sheriff’s proposal to use one of his buildings as a treatment center to alleviate the suffering in Boston’s Mass. and Cass area deeply misguided […]
Sheriff Proposes Committing People Living At Mass And Cass To A Re-Purposed Detention Center
Sheriff Proposes Committing People Living At Mass And Cass To A Re-Purposed Detention Center September 26, 2021WBURBy Deb Becker Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins wants to move people living in tents near “Mass and Cass” to a former detention center in the South Bay House of Correction. The area, at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and […]
Suffolk Sheriff Tompkins proposes to convert empty detention center into temporary housing for people living in tents by Mass. and Cass
Suffolk Sheriff Tompkins proposes to convert empty detention center into temporary housing for people living in tents by Mass. and Cass September 25, 2021The Boston GlobeBy Shirley Leung What is more humane, allowing the squalor and rampant drug use at Boston’s Mass. and Cass street encampment to continue, or relocating some people living there into […]
The Repurposing of the American Jail
November 19, 2019
The Atlantic
Jessica Pishko
NowThis: Massachusetts Sending Innocent Drug Addicts to Involuntary ‘Treatment Centers’ in Prison-Like Facilities
Innocent people in this state are being involuntarily imprisoned as a form of addiction ‘treatment’
Massachusetts Incarcerates Men in the Name of Drug Treatment—Now They’re Suing
Filter March 20, 2019 By Sessi Kuwabara Blanchard A 34-year-old Massachusetts man thought he was going to the Men’s Addiction Treatment Center (MATC), a facility where he had received treatment in the past, for his benzodiazepine and opioid use. Instead, he arrived at a state prison in the middle of a forest near the Massachusetts […]