MASSACHUSETTS SPENDS MORE than $1 billion a year to incarcerate roughly 13,000 people in its state prisons and county houses of correction, but a lot of the details of that spending are shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. As part of the recent wave of attention to criminal justice reform, the Legislature recently formed a special […]
Will Brownsberger
Posted inPolitics
House, Senate redistricting plan would increase minority voting clout
LEGISLATIVE LEADERS on Tuesday released proposed new maps for Massachusetts House and Senate districts, which would enhance the political clout of minority voters while also protecting almost all incumbents. “There is not a single place on the House map where you can draw a majority-minority district where we haven’t,” said Rep. Michael Moran, a […]
Posted inPolitics
Redistricting effort looks to reestablish Black Senate seat
A REDISTRICTING PUSH to establish a majority-Black state Senate district in Boston is coming at a time of heightened attention to racial equity issues and demands for a seat at the table from those historically locked out of power. But the effort to redraw district lines to enhance Black voting power is actually a back-to-the-future […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Families want to end prison phone call charges
AYANA AUBOURG MET her father Winchel Aubourg as an infant while he was behind bars for a drug-related crime. For the next 17 years, she spoke with him over the phone, and occasionally visited while he was held in facilities in Massachusetts and New Jersey. “You have no idea what receiving those phone calls meant […]
Posted inThe Download
The Codcast: Warren, Brownsberger go at it on criminal justice bill
The sweeping criminal justice bill that Gov. Charlie Baker signed earlier this month received widespread, but not universal, praise as a welcome turn away from the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and ‘90s. One notable dissenting voice was that of Setti Warren, the former Newton mayor who is now one of three Democrats vying to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Criminal justice bill reaches finish line
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER signed sweeping criminal justice legislation on Friday, capping several years of discussion on Beacon Hill and casting Massachusetts squarely in the national wave of rethinking tough-on-crime laws of the 1980s and 90s. Flanked at the State House by more than a dozen lawmakers from both parties, Baker said, “Viewed as a whole, […]