Author: Jaclyn Roache

First Massachusetts Jails End In-Person Visitation

The Bristol County Sheriff’s office intends to end in-person visitation in two Dartmouth facilities, replacing it with video calls. The Bristol County House of Correction and the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office Women’s Center will be the first jails in Massachusetts to make the transition.

These Bristol County facilities hold both inmates serving sentences and individuals awaiting trial. They currently have a non-contact policy for visits, in which inmates speak to their friends and family over a phone through a Plexiglas window. Under the new policy, visitors will not enter the actual jails and will instead be directed to an onsite trailer equipped with computers and video conferencing software manufactured by Securus, a private company that many correctional facilities contract for telephone and video communication services. Calls that take place from the trailer will be free of charge. Remote video calls will also eventually be possible but will require virtual visitors to pay an undetermined fee. The new policy will not apply to attorney visits, nor will it affect inmates housed in the Dartmouth ICE facility or the Ash Street Jail in New Bedford.

According to the Bristol County Sheriff’s office, abolishing in-person visitation is part of an effort to reduce the flow of contraband entering the jails. Despite visits taking place through a Plexiglas barrier, drugs and weapons have still been smuggled into the facilities. Officials from the Bristol County House of Correction reported a recent incident in which inmates responsible for post-visitation cleanup obtained a strip of the narcotic Suboxone that had been tucked behind chipped paint on the visitors’ side of the Plexiglas.

The ACLU of Massachusetts has voiced its opposition to the video-only visitation policy. Spokesperson Aaron Wolfson criticized the plan, stating, “As any Skype user can tell you, video communication may provide a benefit to people who are far apart or unable to travel, but it’s no substitute for being in the same room with a person you love. Cutting off the human contact of in-person visitation is cruel to people in jail, their families, and loved ones.”

The new policy is expected to take effect in approximately one month. John Fitzpatrick, who, along with Joel Thompson, is one of the two Supervising Attorneys for the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project, said, “This is a problematic policy change. It further dehumanizes an already marginalized prisoner population. It would be surprising if this were not eventually challenged in court. Unfortunately the current Bristol County Sheriff implementing this restriction has a history of making controversial, regressive pronouncements about prisoners in his custody. His latest limit on in-person visitation is both unsurprising and disappointing. Emphasizing punishment in this way rather than rehabilitation and reintegration is contrary to the current bipartisan political consensus favoring prison reform at the national and state level.”

Massachusetts DOC Will No Longer Hold Those Seeking Substance Use Treatment in Sex Offender Facility

On July 18, the Department of Correction agreed to transfer 14 men out of the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater, the medium-security DOC facility that holds prisoners who are or may be civilly committed as sexually dangerous persons. The 14 men were not serving sentences for sex offenses and indeed were not convicted of any crimes whatsoever; they had been temporarily committed for drug and alcohol abuse treatment. This transfer comes as the result of a civil complaint filed against the Commonwealth by Prisoners’ Legal Services. The complaint, filed on behalf of 11 of these civilly committed men, alleged that they suffered abuse at MTC and received inadequate addiction treatment. All 14 men at MTC will be returned to the minimum-security prison in Plymouth where they were previously held. As part of the agreement, the DOC will end its practice of sending men who have been civilly committed for substance abuse treatment to MTC.

Days before the agreement was reached, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Anthony Campo criticized the placement of men with substance abuse disorders in the same institution as criminally convicted and civilly committed sex offenders. “I don’t know why someone who is committed for the treatment of alcohol and drugs should be subjected to the trappings of prison life… I think the best thing is to get them to a therapeutic environment that is the most appropriate,” Judge Campo said during a July 14 hearing. The men in question were originally sent to the minimum-security Plymouth facility under a law called Section 35, which states that individuals whose substance use disorders pose a risk of serious harm may be involuntarily civilly committed for up to 90 days.

In its complaint, Prisoners’ Legal Services reported that the conditions at MTC were so poor that three men attempted suicide. One man cut a vein in his arm, to which correctional officers allegedly responded by pepper spraying him and placing him in isolation after he received stitches. The men also claimed that some MTC residents, who prepared the facility’s meals, put staples and other inedible objects in their food. The individuals with substance abuse disorders, several of whom have been sexually abused in the past, reported being targeted by sex offenders for verbal harassment, including threats to rape their family members. The complaint states that men who protested these conditions or harmed themselves were strip searched in front of sex offenders before being placed into the “Minimum Privilege Unit,” where they were held in their cells for 23 hours a day.

The DOC disputed some of these claims, stating that the men committed for substance abuse treatment were housed separately from other MTC prisoners. As for the allegations of inadequate addiction treatment, the DOC argued that the men received both group therapy and treatment from a social worker. State officials reported that the men were originally moved from Plymouth to Bridgewater as a result of disruptive and, in some cases, violent, behavior.

Prisoners’ Legal Services is pushing to have all men who have been civilly committed under Section 35 transferred out of any prison facilities to Department of Public Health-operated treatment centers and hospitals. The Plymouth facility to which the 14 men will be returned currently houses nearly 250 men civilly committed for substance use treatment, but it is still a prison operated by the DOC. Per the agreement, the men are expected to be transferred by July 27.

For further details, see the Boston Globe’s reporting on this story:

Substance Abusers to Move Out of Sex Offender Facility

Worse Than Jail: Addicts Civilly Committed Say DOC Abused Them and Failed to Treat Them

Judge Troubled by Allegations from Civilly Committed Addicts