THEY SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
Spring 2013

susan.huskins@bellaliant.net

Alternatives v. Substitutions,
. . . the dirty little secret.
Patrick Declan McManus
The DOC, more specifically the
Food Services Director(s), (“F.S.D.”)
have made it a practice of offering
alternative meals as a cost cutting
measure. These Alternatives, or
Substitutions, are often sub-par
foods, and more often than not – not
nutritionally equivalent to what you
are entitled to receive. Basically, you
are entitled to what is on the menu,
which is what the dietitian plans, and
deemed a “Heart Healthy Diet”.
If you are given a choice, and you
choose the sub-par food, then it is on
you. However, if you are at the
Institution such as Norfolk, where
you are not allowed to choose
because the food is brought to the
unit, then it is no longer an
alternative – it is a substitute. The
simple fact is: You are entitled to
what is on the menu, nothing more,
and nothing less. What used to
happen at Norfolk was that a whole
meal was substituted. The foods
being substituted for were always the

better meals: Roast Beef, Tuna,
Turkey, etc. This practice quickly
stopped due to the volume of letters
sent to Boston/Milford. Often times
when an entire meal was substituted
men were told that if they wanted the
menu item, that they could have the
cop call the kitchen. Many officers
flat out refuse to call. Others threaten
retaliatory measures. What is being
allowed is for the F.S.D. to create a
“climate issue”. I am unsure about
you, but I do not look forward to
arguing with some cop and risk
having my cell “tossed” so I can get
the food I am entitled to.
There
is
talk
of
these
alternate/substitutes being offered at
Norfolk again. Talk of tuna, a meal
loaded with protein, being replaced
every other week with a single
peanut butter sandwich, or a piece of
cheese-less pizza. And it would
appear that this most recent
suggestion of substitutions is coming

JDMC Massachusetts Chapter

from a number of prisoners. And the
F.S.D. has asked for people’s
blessing, and that no one complain?
Do not forget the days of the
rancid meat, hamburger, cheap
pastas, chicory coffee, etc. These
substitutions can only happen if you
allow it. The simple fact is that you
are entitled to what is on the menu.
And if the menu is adhered to 100%,
and the recipe cards are followed
along with the proper preparation,
the food is actually good. And if they
want to offer a change, send 50% of
the menu item, and 50% of the
alternate items(s). If you allow them
an inch you will soon be eating the
bad meats again.
What can you do? Complain to
the Commissioner of the DOC, the
Secretary of Public Safety, the DOC
State Food Director (Christopher
Gendreau c/o 50 Maple Street, Suite
3, Milford, MA 01757). Explain that
allowing the F.S.D. to not adhere

100% to the menu is creating a
climate issue, and that you want what
you are entitled to – what is on the
menu.
A good question for the
Commissioner, and others, is: Why
are you paying Food Service
Directors upwards of $80,000 per
year to adhere to menus, and
prepare food according to the
recipes, when instead they choose to
create a climate issue and serve bad
food. Your complaint counts! ! !

***************************
(Editor’s note: In 2011 Chris
Gendreau’s pay rate was $77,180.87.
Below is his disingenuous report on
the art of being a food service director.
Gendreau brags about keeping food
costs under $3. a day. The piece
appears in the November 2008 edition
of the DOC’s Public Relations
Newsletter, Around the Block. It can
be found on-line at mass.gov/DOC.)
"Your
average
Food
Service Director in the DOC
has to be knowledgeable in
several
different
areas.
Knowledge of diets, medical
needs
and
religious
restrictions are fast becoming
more of an issue. The food
service
staff
has
to
communicate their knowledge
of diets to Correction Officers
and sometimes directly to
inmates. Food service in a
prison setting also has the
additional burden of security

issues to address. This usually
works
against
providing
nutritionally balanced meals in
a timely fashion, but somehow
we get it done on a consistent
basis.
We do not have a lot of
second chances in our
operation. Producing over
33,000 meals a day throughout
the system is mind boggling.
Food safety and sanitation is
another vital area of concern
for the food service staff. The
kitchens throughout the DOC
are some of the cleanest in the
entire industry. This is a
tribute to the food service
professionals we employ. All of
our food service staff is
certified in food safety or
ServSafe. The food service
staff's attention to detail and
consistency
cannot
be
compromised. Documentation
and satisfying Department of
Public
Health,
Policy
Development and Compliance
Unit
and
American
Correctional
Association
standards is another aspect of
the job that separates this
group
of
food
service
professionals from all others.
Another little known fact is
that most , if not all of the food
service staff is part of an
emergency response team or
F.E.D. (Food Emergency
Deployment Team) that in
years past, responded and
supported Red Cross and
Salvation Army efforts at
Worcester and Needham fire
sites. This group is ready,
willing and able to handle any
task at any time.
Another point of interest is
the escalating cost of food and
how the food service staff has
responded this past year. In
most cases this group has been
able to operate at a cost of
$2.91 per inmate a day, when
most of the country is
operating at $3.15 to $3.45 per
inmate a day. It’s just another
feather in the DOC Food
Service Division’s cap."

The Real Hunger Games
By Sam Conti
In The Hunger Games, author
Suzanne Collins depicts a future
world, where “tributes” are forced
into gladiator games and compelled
to fight to the death for “favor”
(food/housing), while the rest of the
country is slowing starving to death.
This barbaric and hideous
practice is the brainchild of an
oppressive government determined
to keep the population in line,
provide entertainment, and to create
jobs.
In OUR world, better-informed
people than this writer have
questioned the nutritional value of
food which prisoners must eat, as
well as the exorbitant prices charged
by private canteen companies across
the United States for what amounts
to “gas-station-junk-food”. Better
informed
people
have
also
questioned the fairness of what
amounts to a monopoly, or the fact
that while the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration
recommends
at
LEAST five servings of fruit and
vegetables a day, MOST prisoners in
America are lucky to get an apple – a
week.
As I have said elsewhere, ad
nauseam, doesn’t ANYONE realize
that prisoners are PEOPLE?
My question is this: if the canteen
companies require a cost-of-living
increase, why is it that prisoners are
expected to keep receiving the same
slave wages, without a pay increase,
since at least 1970?
Prisoners shovel miles of snow in
MA prisons, cut acres of grass, do
most, if not all the maintenance,
plumbing, cooking, janitorial and
electrical work, as well most of the
clerical duties in the average prison

system. They save the state tens-ofthousands of dollars a month. Is it
too much to ask to be able to buy a
bit of “canteen”, to supplement their
poor diets?
If an inmate earns a dollar a day,
half is put into “savings”, which he
or she is NEVER allowed to access.
That leaves only fifty cents per day,
clear. Bread from the “canteen” now
cost prisoners two dollars a loaf.
Does anyone on the street pay FOUR
DAYS' SALARY for THEIR loaf of
bread?
The REAL “Hunger Games”
have begun.

D.O.C. Miscommunications
Submitted Sept. 2012
Francis E. Arenella
Seems
that
there
is
a
communications problem between
Keefe (Canteen), the D.O.C. and the
prisoners. This could be happening at
the other prisons, not just here at
N.C.C.I. Gardner. Let me explain.
First, the inmates here were told
that they had to have their canteen
slips in early because of the
upcoming Labor Day Weekend.
Then on August 31, the inmates went
to pick up their canteen. They were
told that some of the food items they
had ordered were not sent because of
product changes. Inmates were told it
would affect the canteen on
September 7.
At 11:30am August 31, a memo
was posted in each building showing
the new items and those being
replaced. Lo and Behold! The date
Keefe actually wrote the memo was
August 6, 2012.
Here is the miscommunication.
Where was this memo for 25 days?
Who posted this memo and why did
it take so long to be posted?

Again we are shown that a major
vendor can make mistakes and
nothing is done to penalize them, but
let an inmate do something wrong
and all hell comes down on him.
The other miscommunication
happened on August 30th when the
Gardner staff gave each of us a bar of
soap which would not last one
shower. Let me explain this mistake
or act of stupidity: every Thursday
inmates receive a single roll of toilet
paper and every other Thursday we
receive a State bar of soap which is
supposed to last 2 weeks, but that
never does.
On August 30th, the inmates
received such a bar of soap and when
the superintendent was touring the
facility (a.k.a. Happy Hour) several
prisoners asked her about the tiny
piece of soap. All she said was, “I
will look into it.”
Another Thursday is here and
there’s not one memo on the soap or
a response to the late posting of
Keefe’s memo. Remember, we have
the right to be informed in a timely
manner, not 25 days later or even a
week later!
Finally: where are the copies of
the new Melissa's Law that are
legally required by to be in the prison
law libraries?

Felon or Fall Guy?
Darin Bufalino
The saga of the Annie Dookhan
MA Department of Public Health
Lab Scandal continues to spew forth
like a long dormant volcano under
intense pressure. The details, like a
steady flow of lava, scorch and burn
upon release as evidenced by the
recent resignation of a Norfolk
County Assistant District Attorney.
He is certainly not the first casualty
nor will he be the last. As recently
reported Mr. Dookhan had contacted
this Norfolk County prosecutor
because there had been so much
contact between the ADA and Mrs.
Dookhan that Mr. Dookhan asked if
he was romantically involved with her.

I watched the newscast of Annie
Dookhan being led into the
courtroom for her initial arraignment.
She appeared resigned to her fate like
a criminal defendant who knows that
her pals, who once swore a common
cause, have switched teams and are
now pointing the finger. How
unfortunate for this woman who for
years was the go-to person at the
State Lab for countless prosecutors.
Time will tell if these prosecutors get
burned as more details come to light,
like slow-flowing lava. Ms. Dookhan
was the go-to person at the State Lab
for a reason and if the prosecutors
profess ignorance then they should
be reminded that ignorance is no
defense to the law. Will the A.D.A.’s
recent resignation amount to a high

paying job elsewhere? Again, he
would not be the first.
The spreading lava flow has
everyone near the scandal looking
for refuge or some way to dampen
the damage. Advice for Annie
Dookhan? Do not be the fall guy;
you have admitted tampering and
falsifying evidence. Your co-workers
and supervisors were suspicious of
your actions for years.
It is incredible that this situation
was allowed to continue for years
with these so-called professionals not
speaking up and with countless
prosecutors, officers of the court one
and all, remaining silent as well.
Was it because you thought you
were on the side of good against evil
in the “War against Drugs”? If so,
you have learned a life lesson; when
you stoop to the level of your
opponent (in this case the defendant),
you become one. If you were looking
to gain the affection of the
aforementioned prosecutor – as he

was well aware, as evidenced by his
resignation – is it possible or
probable that he and his fellow
prosecutors looked the other way or
expected the implausible work
product you manufactured?
Now hundreds of men and
women are being released from jails
and prisons as the result of what was
allowed to happen at the State Lab.
The public brays for justice and state
pols see another opportunity to
finagle more federal funds. The
Attorney General’s Office declares
jurisdiction, thereby ensuring state
prosecutors are investigating their
colleagues who were convicting men
and women who may not have been
guilty. These people are someone’s
father or mother, son or daughter.
Just think about how many lives
have been turned upside down by the
“Good Guys”.
Law enforcement is threatening
those being released with intense
scrutiny, severe punishment for any
future offenses, mandatory programs
and more. Their position begs the
question: why have not these ideas
been implemented before now if they
are such a great deterrent?
Prosecutors are indignant over
defense attorneys’ demands that
charges resulting from testing done
at the State Lab be dismissed. What
option do they have? Ms. Dookhan,
among other things, has admitted
making samples positive by adding
an illegal drug but no one knows
which.
There’s another segment of
society
voicing
its
opinion.
Unfortunately, from where they sit, it
is nearly impossible to be heard by
the public even if the public wanted
to hear them. Specifically, prisoners
incarcerated in Massachusetts and in
the Federal Bureau of Prisons have
been convicted by a system which
believes it is above the law. In their

opinion Ms. Dookhan should not be
the only fall guy. It is improbable, if
not impossible, that she acted
without, at the very least, the tacit
approval
of
her
co-workers,
supervisors and prosecutors. The
facts validate this opinion, wherefore
the question arises: has she been
questioned about who else was
involved and to what extent?
Ms. Dookhan now knows how it
feels to be in the dock wondering
why she is the only one facing a
hostile courtroom. Law enforcement
and prosecutors always ask the
question “Who else is involved?”
Another life lesson, Ms. Dookhan:
misery loves company. You have
already acted the felon. Do yourself
and many others a favor by not being
the fall guy for this epic travesty of
justice and answer the question. Do
not be afraid. For years your actions
have caused untold misery to
thousands of men and women.
Forget the criminal penalty that may
be imposed,; you have a moral
obligation to expose every facet of
this scandal not only for those
convicted by your actions, not only
to the public and every honest person
who works in criminal justice, but to
every person who was convicted and
sent to prison because of perjured
evidence or testimony. This scandal
is the tip of the proverbial iceberg in
opening
the
public’s
eyes.
Notwithstanding the ‘bad apple’
theory, tainted evidence prevents a
judge or jury from coming to a just
decision
Those who have been through the
system know you were not acting
alone. Do you want to put the
criminals behind bars? Answer the
question.

?!?

"As you know, Annie Dookhan has been labeled the "rogue chemist" by the
gov-media establishment. She, alone, personifies everything that is wrong
with the state's war on drugs. Their racist prison industrial complex would be
perfectly righteous and moral, if only one evil lab worker had not made it
look so bad."
comment from Rich Aucoin
12/20/12

A Call for Abolition
Ralph C. Hamm, III
On November 28, 2012, I will
have served forty-four years in prison
for a non-capital first offense that
occurred when I was 17 years old in
1968. I am currently serving a second
degree life sentence.
In "Massissippi"1, the only method
by which a State prisoner convicted to
serve a second degree life sentence
can
obtain
a
release
from
imprisonment is via a Massachusetts
General Law, chapter 127, section
133A mandated parole eligibility
hearing after having served fifteen
years on said sentence and being
afforded a parole certificate from the
parole board. Uniquely, I received my
first parole eligibility hearing in 1999,
after having served 31 years in prison,
due to the blatant misuse of the
aggregation law in this State by the
Parole Board. The "Massissippi" State
and federal judiciary determined, by
way of focus-shifting away from my
central Constitutional arguments of a
violation of equal protection and due
process of law (the 14th Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution), that "all
roads lead back to Rome" - furthering
the premise that a black man has no
Constitutional rights that whites are
bound by law to respect2; as regards a
statutorily mandated parole eligibility
hearing in 1983 - after having served
fifteen years on a second degree life
sentence.
Due to the fact that I had the
audacity to challenge the Parole
Board's misuse of the aggregation
policy in court, I have been penalized
by the Board with 25 years of parole
request denials. This fact was made
evident during the course of my 2004
parole eligibility hearing, when the
assistant district attorney for Essex
County told the Parole Board to deny
my request for parole because I
appealed my conviction (something
else that I assumed was a right under
the 14th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution) and that I took the
Parole Board to court claiming I had
rights. I did indeed receive a parole

request denial, and another five year
review...premised upon disciplinary
reports from the 1970’s.
During the proceedings in my
September 15, 2009 parole eligibility
hearing, my lawyers3 brought my
juvenile-at-the-time-of-the-crime
status to the attention of the board,
through an affidavit submitted by
psychologist Staci Gruber and hearing
testimony. The response from the
Chairman of the Parole Board, Mark
Conrad4 , was to ask if I was a man of
my convictions (beliefs). When I
replied that I try to be, he quipped:
"Then why don't you die in prison.";
and I received another denial on my
request for a parole, with a five year
review (or set back). Once again, the
Board relied upon disciplinary reports
from 1970s Walpole Prison for the
basis of their denial. The 1970s was a
time in Walpole when there was 22
murders in one year, making it the
most dangerous prison (per capita) in
America. Prisoners were forced to
fight for their lives, and the last thing
that we concerned ourselves with was
disciplinary reports. We lived under
the basic instinct of resistance and
survival. Most of the prisoners who
committed the murders in Walpole
Prison have since received paroles. I
will be 64 years old at my next parole
eligibility hearing in 2014, or I will be
dead 5.
Today, in the wake of the United
States Supreme Court decisions in
both Graham V. Florida (2010) and
Miller V. Alabama (2012), the mental
capacity of juvenile offenders during
the commission of crime has finally
been recognized in jurisprudence. The
Court has determined that juvenile
offenders can no longer be sentenced
to life without the possibility of
parole. They have taken into account
that a juvenile does not have the same
mental capacity, nor culpability, as an
adult offender. As the juvenile ages
he
is
more
susceptible
to
rehabilitation, because he is less
incorrigible.
The Committee for Public Counsel
Service (CPCS), Juvenile Appeals
Division, is attempting to work out a
sentencing
solution
with

Geronimo (third from right, in front) and his fellow Apache prisoners en route to POW
camp at Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida, in 1886. Photo: Wikipedia

"Massissippi" courts pertaining to
those juvenile offenders serving
natural life sentences without the
possibility of parole for capital
offenses - to where they can be
resentenced and not face to endure a
lifetime in prison under the onus of a
life sentence. However, no action is
being taken in the Commonwealth to
address the onus of life imprisonment
faced by juvenile offenders who have
not committed a capital offense, as
the mandate held within Graham, It
has been construed to be a mere
suggestion. Those presently serving a
natural life sentence for murder may
realize a far better outcome in their
resentencing than those juveniles
presently serving second degree life
sentences for non - capital first
offenses, and God Bless them, CSCS
has attempted to convince me that my
serving 44 years on a non-capital
second degree life sentence for an
offense that occurred when I was 17
years old, and being told by the Parole
Board (not as an individual, but as a
State entity) to die in prison for my
beliefs, is not a unique circumstance. I
believe that it is. For, if not unique,
for the Parole Board to literally
amend second degree life sentences of
juvenile offenders onto natural life
sentences by telling them to die and
the repeatedly denying their requests
for parole until they do die, then the
question arises as to why defense
attorneys in the Commonwealth have

not aligned themselves against the
Parole Board and petitioned the
legislature
and
the
Governor
regarding this obvious abuse of
discretion. I will tell you why. When
you are black in "Massissippi", no
matter how young at the time of the
commission of your crime, no
sentence or extrajudicial amending of
your sentence by a State agency is
excessive or abusive. There will be no
outcry of foul play.
It is possible that "Massissippi"
judges will conclude that juvenile
offenders serving natural life
sentences should be resentenced to a
second degree life sentence, which
would afford a fifteen year possibility
of parole. This would mean that those
juveniles will be tasked to face the
vindictiveness
and
duplicity
hallmarked by the w prosecutor-6),
and former law enforcement manned
State Parole Board. If the Board can
alter a second degree life sentence
into a natural life sentence for a
juvenile offender of a non-capital
offense by telling him to die in prison,
in spite of obvious rehabilitation on
the offender's part, then those juvenile
offenders resentenced by the court
from natural life to life in the second
degree do not stand a "possibility of
parole". Much like the sentence of the
non-capital offender, their sentence
will remain one of natural life due to
continual denials for parole and five

year reviews, ad infinitum,
under the "Massissippi"
Plan.
The only viable answer to
the political and mediahyped Draconian 7), nature
of the Parole Board, is to
encourage
the
State
legislature into abolishing
the Board and to enact a law
to
replace
it
with
presumptive
parole
in
sentencing; similar to the
Federal Bureau of Prisons,
and other enlightened States
in the country. Neo-liberal
"Massissippi"
must
be
dragged
kicking
and
screaming out of the dark
ages
of
crime
and
punishment, and into the age
of enlightenment.

Nightmares
Every night plagued by visions of my future-to-be,
To live the rest of my life in this prison,
Unable to separate reality from dream and
sometimes
It seems, it's part of the punishment I've been given.
Waking up in cold sweats, overwhelmed with regret,
I ponder events yet to come.
Will I be forgotten in time, my memory cease to
Exist, not even the love a mother has for her son?
Can the world just discard me, cast aside without
Care, forced from the mind as you would a
nightmare?
Or take my heart in their hands, realize I’m just
A man, then promise they’ll always be there?
It’s been left up to you where my life goes from
Here, am I lost or do I press on?
Will I be kept here forever, my heart full of
Despair? Is it true my soul’s really gone?

NOTES
1) "Massissippi" is a term that I
Damon Allemao, Gardner
substituted for Massachusetts,
and first utilized in my 1974
poem
Ameriklan
Just-us
(Massissippi-style), and later
published
in
my
1979
collection of poetry Dear
Stranger/ The Wayfarer.
2) SEE; Dred Scott V. John
Sanford, _Howard_ (1857).
3) Attorneys John Swomley and
Eric Tennen, Swomley &
Associates.
4) Although a so-called black and,
he had the habit of telling
black prisoners serving second
degree life sentences, who
survived 1791’s Walpole
Prison, to die in prison; while
departments, almost 9 percent of bottled
catering to whites from the same era. A
true askari of the apartheid government.
water purchases were made by the
5) The last time that I checked the statistics
DOC. Using the numbers prepared by
pertaining to the life expectancy of black
the Massachusetts Open Checkbook
males in this country, it was 64 years.
and cited by reporter Katie Lannan, we
6) Ex-prosecutors that vie for chairman
calculate that the DOC represents just
positions on the Parole Board are
ambitious, and use their chair (along with
.63 % of total departments, but uses it at
the lives of the prisoners) as a political
14 times the rate of other agencies. In
stepping stone to a future life
her February 3, 20102 article, State
appointment as an Associate Justice of
pouring cash into bottled water,
the Superior Court.
7) Draconian means rigorous, unusually
Lowell Sun reporter Katie Lannan
severe of cruel.
asked Diane Wiffen, Director of Public

DOC Ace Propagandist Diane
Wiffen accidentally tells the truth!
MPV editor's note: Since last July,
of the state's 159 governmental

Affairs for MA DOC, to explain the
massive discrepancy. How did Wiffen
respond?
Here's
how:
"For safety and security reasons, we
provide water to staff who are not

allowed to bring water into
secure institutions, as well as
to staff who work in buildings
that have no water faucets."
And prisoners are forced to use
foul, greasy water known as
Johnny Walker Blue, which
makes them ill and causes skin
rashes. The long-time health
concerns about polluted water,
documented in tests and by
prisoners themselves, are an
issue of safety for all MA
prisoners. Ms. Wiffen is being
honest, though MPV thinks she
didn't intend to be.

The Room
R.N.
Although I’ve yet to enter
“The Room” and meet the
educated members of the socalled parole board, I can
almost visualize what it may
come to look like. These
visions are not only of “The
Room”, but also of the type of
people who are positioned to
be members of what they
consider an elite system.
As you open the door and
begin down that long hall you
soon enter into a large room
with maybe some small
cubicles, each with two or
three computer screens. Most
of one wall is some so-called
bulletproof plastic material where
behind sits the elite force. Behind
them sit an array of computers and
monitoring equipment. The room
itself resembles a self-contained
fortress with three walls lined with
Kevlar beneath studs laid over a
heavy concrete wall. The only three
windows are small openings above
head height and they too are covered
with bullet-proof plastic.
Those who tend to think they are
qualified to sit as members of this
board live mostly in their minds, and
think have exceptional ability to
visualize what is not, but what might
be. Like them and many others

within the corrupt system, they have
lost control of their egos. They see
their success increase. They change,
become self-absorbed, abusive, and
have become paranoid to their
surroundings. Soon the day will
come when the thought of being near
power will be replaced by the
thought of it being taken away.
Once upon entering that room and
sitting down, two different worlds
will collide and then after a few
minutes separate. When all is done
and you walk out of that room and
down that long hall, a thought comes
to you as you silently say to yourself,
“Gee these people are the only
human subspecies actually capable of
shoving their nose up their own ass.”
From Sue’s Desk
I would like to take this
opportunity to apologize to any
of you who might have received
a contraband Christmas card
from me. I did not realize that
you people could do dastardly
things with glitter. I have
racked my brain to try to think
of how you would be able to
overthrow the screws with it
but so far I have not come up
with
anything.
I
would
appreciate any of you informing
me what you would do with it.
With this in mind, I would like
to award the first Ball and
Chain award to the Grinches
and Grinchettes of the DOC.
I would like to inform you
that I am in the process of
taking the MPV to Facebook.
Some of you have written me
and suggested this. I have
opened a Facebook account and
am working on posting the
issues of the MPV on it and
hopefully expanding from there.
I will be having eye surgery next
month and am hoping that this
will help me to be able to stay
on the computer for longer
periods of time. That’s about it
for now. Stay strong and take
care of you.

`

*
“You never know how strong you
are until being strong is the only
choice you have left.”
- Anonymous

The Gender Responsive Prison
“Solution” JUST SAY NO!
MPV commemorates International
Women’s Day 2013 by restating our
vigorous opposition to the push for
more prison cells for women.
Unfortunately, here in Massachusetts
the very folks leading this campaign
are women. Employing a liberal,
classist and racist analysis, female
policy-makers,
legislators
and
appointed officials are working
together to build additional lock-ups
for women. And they are selling the
idea of these prison beds as for our
own good.
What follows are our comments
and excerpts from Kinder, Gentler,
Gender Responsive Cages: Prison
Expansion Is Not Prison Reform, by
Rose Braz, Women, Girls & Criminal
Justice, October/November 2006 (Braz
was a founding member of Critical
Resistance.)
Those
advocating
gender
responsive prisons seek to create "an
environment
that
reflects
an
understanding of the realities of
women’s lives and addresses the issues
of the women.” The underlying
presumption of advocating for gender
responsive prisons is that such an
environment can be created in a prison,
that imprisonment can effectively
address the “realities of women’s
lives” and the “issues of the women,” a
presumption that (we) also do not find
valid. The biggest pitfall of gender
responsiveness
in
relation
to
imprisonment
is
that
gender
responsiveness fails to challenge the
notion of prison as an institution that
can effectively “address the issues of
women.”
One of the most intriguing and
disturbing aspects of the state’s
proposal is that this dramatic
expansion plan is being sold as “prison
reform.” Despite the rhetoric, new

prison construction is not, and never
can be, prison reform. Building new
prisons under the rhetoric of “gender
responsiveness” is not prison reform.
Increasingly, the state’s only and
ubiquitous answer to any problem
within the prison system—whether for
more and better programming,
disastrous medical and mental
healthcare, or because there are too
many people in prison—is bricks,
mortar and expansion…
And, history teaches us better than
anything else: If we build them, we
will fill them. (The Chicopee Women’s
Jail is a case in point. Despite massive
opposition faux-feminists prevailed
and the jail is being expanded for the
second time since its 2007 opening.)
Pro-prison activists are selling
these new prisons for women to
feminists, reformers, and progressives
as better for women.
Ironically, a major justification for
these new prisons is that women would
be “serving their sentences closer to
their families.” Thus, it is suggested,
they will be able to better maintain
family ties. State documents posit that
the new prisons are “intended to
strengthen family ties by making it
easier for children to have regular
contact with their mothers.” However,
during Governor Deval Patrick’s term,
the Department of Correction has
drastically cut visiting days and hours.
Patrick’s Master Plan (a fitting
moniker) envisions three new prisons
for men; one specifically for elderly
prisoners; and women’s beds in all
counties.
This
expansion
is
promulgated as “increasing capacity”.
We all want safe and healthy
communities. But bankrupting the state
to expand a prison system that has not
made us safer is bad public policy.
There are literally hundreds of ways
we can reduce the number of people in
prison. We can do this more equitably,
more efficiently and less expensively
and more important- with far less
abuse, injustice and state control.
It’s time to stop pretending that
increased capacity, no matter how
gender responsive, is part of the
solution. Progress is NOT women
jailors, women sheriffs and women
prosecutors. Copying the good old
boys is anti-woman. Just say NO to
pro-prison women!

I

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The rhinoceros and crocodile have no idea that the following 17 objects are close at hand: pliers, a bunch of celery stalks, a
map of California, bananas, a cowboy boot, a flashlight, a chair, an artichoke, a screwdriver, a salt shaker, a muffin, a rabbit's
head, a metal nut, a Civil War cap, a bat's head, a marching band hat and a caterpillar.

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