Community Post: Advocating for the MA Jail and Prison Construction Moratorium and Elder Parole
FROM OUR FRIENDS AT FAMILIES FOR JUSTICE AS HEALING:
The Jail and Prison Construction Moratorium and Elder Parole were reported out favorably from their respective committees! Thank you so much for your ongoing support. We are fighting now to pass these bills in very limited time.
MA ACTION TOOLKIT
We are hoping you will help us push for these bills to pass before the end of the session - knowing you all are also trying to move mountains. Thank you. There are few key ways to plug into advocacy:
1) Public Health Letter - Human Impact Partners has put together a sign on letter of support for the Prison Moratorium from public health professionals, students, and providers. Public Health folks, we'd be so grateful if you would sign and circulate this letter to your networks: https://tinyurl.com/pubhsign
2) Faith Leaders/Clergy Letter - This is a letter put together by clergy and faith leaders who have been actively engaged in the FreeHer campaign. Please share this support letter for the Prison Moratorium with clergy and faith leaders of all backgrounds: https://tinyurl.com/faithleadersign
3) Phonebank with us - We have phonebanks every single Thursday from 5-7pm and you can see all of those events plus canvasses here: bit.ly/nonewprisonvolunteer. Contact us if you would like to host a phone bank or an action hour; we'd be glad and grateful to set that up.
While these bills are separate, they reflect an increasing urgency to shift course in Massachusetts. The Prison Moratorium would give us time to implement alternatives, and Elder Parole means the opportunity to release the oldest and longest serving women in MCI-Framingham - making a new women's prison even more unnecessary.
It is especially pressing to pass this legislation in a context where the administration just allocated a million more dollars in the FY25 capital investment plan for the DOC to work with HDR on designing the new women's prison. HDR has been totally opaque and unaccountable with public dollars already, and refused to respond to the concerns of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women about this project.
We are going to be sending an email to the legislature thanking the Committees, updating them about the status of the bills, and encouraging them to pass the legislation by the end of the session. We are going to amplify the coalition letter you signed and remind them there is broad support for these bills! bit.ly/moratoriumletter.
