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Racial disparities in incarceration have increased in Massachusetts. Where do we go from here?
On Wednesday, Boston Indicators and MassINC released a report on criminal justice in Massachusetts, studying what’s changed since the passage of two criminal justice reform laws in 2018. Massachusetts now has the lowest incarceration rate of any state in the U.S., but incarceration rates have decreased much more for white people than for Blacks, and the rate for Latinos is trending upwards. As a result, racial disparities in incarceration have increased in Massachusetts.
This week on Basic Black, guests celebrate the decline in the state’s incarcerated population. MCI-Concord, the state’s oldest men’s prison, will close later this year due to a declining population.
The 2018 reform laws called for improved data collection and more transparency. “For a long time, there was a great deal of opacity in Massachusetts, where we didn’t have this type of data–not just on the system overall, but really looking at how the system treats people by race,” says Leon Smith, Executive Director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice. “This data is the receipts that the reform that we all fought for worked, and we need to continue on the same path,” he says.
But there is more work to be done. “One of the main purposes of this [legislation] was to take some of the savings that came from fewer people being incarcerated and reinvesting it in community,” says Rahsaan Hall, President & CEO of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts. While the state distributed some funds through the Safe & Successful Youth Initiative (SSYI), “those tend to be more law enforcement-oriented and associated programs,” says Hall. “If you give people money to address the problems that they know they have themselves, we’ll get far better outcomes,” he says.
Smith advocates for addressing individuals’ needs before pulling them into the criminal justice system. Even then, Smith says, it’s beneficial for young people to remain in the juvenile justice system. “Eighteen to 20-year-olds who are kept in the juvenile system, the Department of Youth Services, where they have access to education with a pathway towards a diploma, where they have access to treatment and counseling and therapy that addresses underlying trauma, where they have greater family involvement… those recidivism rates cut in half,” when compared to 18- to 20-year olds who enter the adult criminal justice system, says Smith.
Sophia Hall, Deputy Litigation Director of Lawyers for Civil Rights in Boston, says that reform requires a culture shift. “Do we really believe in second chances in Massachusetts?” she asks. “If we do, then we have to build in better systems and better resources for what happens after individuals are released from jail and before they ever enter that system,” she says.
Radha Natarajan, Executive Director of the New England Innocence Project, is disappointed that the report doesn’t amplify the voices of people who have been directly impacted by the system. “We need accountability in the criminal legal system. We can’t call it a criminal justice system unless we see those racial disparities [disappear], we see that decriminalization, we see that decarceration,” she says.
While collecting and sharing data is important, it’s only the beginning of system reform. “Five years from now, if we do the work, we may actually be at the core causes of what causes these numbers. That’s what this bill was intended to do,” says Sophia Hall.
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