Job Opportunity in MA for an Organizer to help End LWOP

DROP LWOP Coalition Welcomes End to Life Without Parole Sentencing in L.A.!  – CCWP

The Campaign to End Life without Parole (CELWOP), a newly formed coalition, is seeking a community organizer to coordinate a state-wide drive to increase public awareness of life without parole sentences in Massachusetts and to galvanize public support to end LWOP.

 The campaign would complement efforts by Massachusetts lawmakers to secure passage of H1797, legislation that would eliminate LWOP by mandating parole review eligibility in all instances starting at 25 years of incarceration. The measure would also establish restorative justice programs geared to men and women incarcerated in Massachusetts on sentences in excess of 25 years.

 CELWOP seeks a field organizer with lived experience in the criminal legal system, either as a formerly incarcerated person or as someone with a loved one who is serving a life sentence or another extreme sentence. While current funding for the post would expire after 24 weeks, CELWOP will work to raise additional resources to extend the position. CELWOP anticipates that the position will begin July 1 2021.

 Connecting with faith-based groups, unions, schools and colleges, community-based and activist organizations, the organizer will seek to challenge the media-driven false narrative that people convicted of violent offenses are irredeemable and undeserving of a second chance.

The organizer will work in collaboration with incarcerated members of CELWOP. He/She/They will be responsible for promoting civic engagement in the campaign to abolish life without parole.

In particular, the organizer should have:

  •     knowledge of the Massachusetts criminal legal system
  •     the ability to travel to targeted districts to attend conferences, community gatherings   and public rallies.
  •     have a computer, phone and the ability to print documents.

 In addition, the organizer will be expected to:

  •     work in collaboration with others to create a social media campaign against life without parole sentences in Massachusetts.
  •     arrange speaking engagements for himself/herself/themselves, as well as CELWOP members.
  •     respond promptly, in consultation with CELWOP, to provocative or hostile commentary or coverage in the media.
  •     provide a detailed monthly activities report to CELWOP.
  •     attend regular meetings of the CELWOP coalition, in person or via Zoom conferencing

 Skills/Knowledge Needed

  •     strong computer skills
  •     familiarity with social media
  •     organizational experience
  •     trained in or familiar with restorative justice
  •     strong communication skills, both verbal and written
  •     ability to work effectively with diverse groups of people
  •     familiarity with the legislative process
  •     familiarity with organizations and individuals working to end mass incarceration
  •     familiarity with restorative justice practices both inside and outside of prison.

The organizer, who will be retained as an independent contractor, will check in and report progress on a monthly basis to the Exoneree Network, which is applying for funds from The Sentencing Project to finance CELWOP. The Network’s fiscal sponsor is The New England Innocence Project. The organizer’s direction will be led by consensus of CELWOP.

 DURATION
July 1 2021 – December 15 2021: 24 weeks:

 COMPENSATION
40 dollars per hour, 20 hours a week, or 480 hours, plus reimbursement for expenses 

YOUR RESUME AND A LETTER EXPLAINING YOUR INTEREST AND QUALIFICATIONS FOR THIS POSITION SHOULD BE EMAILED TO:

 

CYNTHIA GOLDBERG
cynthia@thef8foundation.org 

 

Tragedy at Old Colony

Please read my newest and maybe most important article I’ve written this year here. It is about A YEAR OF DISASTER AT OLD COLONY: SUICIDE ATTEMPTS, SELF-HARM, AND COVID and begins like this: 

*****

For Joseph Beatty, as for all of the men I heard from for this article, mental health services were drastically diminished at Old Colony Correctional Center (OCCC) in Bridgewater during the pandemic year.

On the afternoon of Feb. 24, 2021, instead of receiving treatment, Beatty was contemplating ending his life.

He was not in his cell on the residential treatment unit (RTU), nor was he talking idly in the dayroom or outside for recreation.

Beatty, who some called a haunted soul, was standing on the second tier of the RTU, approximately 15 feet above the ground. He was “out of place,” according to an incident report filed at OCCC.

Then, Beatty “suddenly shrugged his shoulders, took several large strides, grabbed the hand railing on the end of the tier and flipped himself over.”

Will Soper, who suffered from sexual, physical, and mental abuse before he came to the RTU two years ago, recounted, “At the time, I was by the kiosk machine where we put our canteen orders and I was talking to a couple of guys before I heard a scream.”

As Beatty fell, he landed on another prisoner. Yet, his head cracked open on the concrete and it bled profusely. 

“I still can’t get rid of the sound of his head smashing off the floor,” Soper recalled. MORE

 

MA Contact Your Legislators: PAROLE REFORM NOW

FROM THE COALITION FOR EFFECTIVE PUBLIC SAFETY
gojfc
Picture courtesy of Wrongful Conviction Blog
 

As the April 5th Globe editorial illustrated, the parole system is in dire need of reform. Please act now by asking your legislators to cosponsor two important pieces of legislation that would bring much needed change to Massachusetts:

Please see (and circulate!) this ACTION ALERT, which has quick summary information of the bills and an easy ready made email that you can send to your legislators when you enter your information (it will also give you a chance to modify it if you would like to).
 
If you prefer to copy and paste, see below:
PLEASE SUPPORT PAROLE REFORM!

The parole system in Massachusetts is broken, and in dire need of reform. Please act now by asking your legislators to cosponsor two important pieces of legislation that would bring much needed change to Massachusetts:

  • An Act to promote equitable access to parole fact sheet here (SD 1065/HD 2124, sponsored by Senator Creem, Representatives Vargas and Miranda) will improve the efficiency and balance of the parole board, account for the rights and needs of persons with certain disabilities, improve transparency, and reduce the amount of time prisoners must wait between parole reviews. It will require prisoners to be granted parole at their parole eligibility date unless the parole board determines that the prisoner would violate the law if released under appropriate conditions and community supervision. 

  • An Act to Reform Parole Supervision in the Interest of Justice (SD 2212/HD 3620, sponsored by Sen. Jehlen and Rep. Miranda) imposes specific requirements the parole board must follow when issuing conditions of parole to ensure that such conditions will be reasonably related to the crime of conviction of the person placed on parole and no more restrictive than necessary. It also ensures that a person’s parole cannot be revoked if they violate a condition of parole that does not result in a criminal conviction and establishes a process by which people serving lifetime parole sentences may petition the board after three years without violating the law for a hearing to terminate their parole. 

Sample email/script:
Dear Legislator,I am writing to ask that you cosponsor An Act to promote equitable access to parole (SD 1065/HD 2124, fact sheet here, sponsored by Senator Creem, Representatives Vargas and Miranda) and An Act to Reform Parole Supervision in the Interest of Justice (SD 2212/HD 3620, sponsored by Sen. Jehlen and Rep. Miranda).  As this recent Globe editorial illustrates, the current parole system is in dire need of reform.

These bills support reasonable parole reform that will be in the interest of public safety. Right now, the parole system is so broken that it keeps a lot of people incarcerated who could otherwise live free without violating the law. This has serious negative effects on community safety and racial justice, given the existing extreme racial disparities in incarceration in the Commonwealth. Incarcerating people who could live safely in the community concentrates the Commonwealth’s resources on imprisonment and punishment at the expense of healthy community support, even though we know that imprisonment does not address the underlying causes of violence and harm. Creating a more effective parole system would enable the Commonwealth to direct resources to systems of care such as education, health care and job creation, as well as help develop a social safety net to prevent harm.

A well functioning parole system would work to support people upon release, rather than work as a new form of punishment and surveillance. Unfortunately, right now, the parole system often sets people up to fail by imposing draconian conditions and re-incarcerating people for technical (non-criminal) violations, particularly people who may violate because they have had substance use disorder relapses, or because our systems have failed to provide the appropriate support. There are provisions in these bills which ensure that people are not immediately re-incarcerated for technical violations, and that parole must take steps to support people prior to re-incarceration.

Public safety is not served by having a system that is widely understood to be stacked against people who are up for parole. This leads to a lack of hope, and hope is crucial to create conditions for transformation and rehabilitation.

Thank you for your consideration and support.
Sincerely,

[Your name and contact information]

FOR MORE INFO ON OUR BROKEN PAROLE SYSTEM, READ MY ARTICLES at DIGBoston such as: https://digboston.com/the-dysfunctional-mass-parole-boards-inevitable-coronavirus-crisis

COMMONWEALTH COMMITTED TO “OTHER DEATH PENALTY”

Please see my newest article at DIGBoston: Commonwealth Committed to “Other Death Penalty”–New report shows 1/6 of women in Mass prisons sentenced to life without parole.Angela Jefferson (left) and her daughter, Shanita. Photo courtesy of Families for Justice as Healing WEBSITE

It begins: “The fear of the unknown is what I feel every day,” Angela Jefferson writes. The note came in an email from MCI Framingham, where she has served “30 long years.”

Jefferson adds, “I get sad a lot of times when I think about all of the things that I could be doing out there in the world to give back. I look out the window to my room and see the cars passing by, but the thing that makes it depressing is the barbed wire that is wrapped around the fences.”

Jefferson is one of the 26 women out of 163 currently held at the oldest women’s prison in the country who are serving life without parole (LWOP). Parole does not mean a guarantee of release but offers a second chance, whereas LWOP is often called “the other death penalty.” (I previously wrote about this in 2019.)  MORE