Inmates at Massachusetts prison say they are facing retaliation after speaking to I-Team in March
BOSTON - Inmates at one Massachusetts institution say that the prison administration has retaliated against them for speaking out after an I-Team report aired in March.
The original investigation revealed that in some cases, training and education programs listed in the Department of Corrections brochure never existed or were not available to everyone.
Thousands of inmates on waitlist for programs
Mac Hudson, a former inmate who now advocates for incarcerated people, said, 'the tension's so thick that you can cut it with a knife; well, that's day-to-day prison life."
Hudson spent more than three decades behind bars and now works for Prison Legal Services. He said that inmates are purposely being set up to fail and that there is not much opportunity for rehabilitation in prison, which means inmates are leaving unprepared.
Earlier this year, an I-Team investigation found that programs like dog training and dozens of others listed in the Department of Correction's 2023 brochure were not available at most institutions, had long waiting lists, or did not even exist.
Aaron Steinberg with Prison Legal Services said, "The Department of Correction is essentially not doing what it says. Our latest records request shows that the programming waitlists are in the thousands."
Advocate said inmates are facing retaliation
Since the report aired, the Department of Correction or DOC revised its list of programs. Prisoners at the state's Gardner institution, who have filed a lawsuit about the lack of programming, say that the DOC has limited access to the programs that were available. They are calling it retaliation.
"I do know that since the piece has been released that a bunch of guys have been cracked down on by the administration. They deprived them of the program access that they are supposed to be getting by making it hard for them to access, not just that program, but anything," said Hudson.
The I-Team found that only $10 million, or 2% of the Department of Correction's $800 million Fiscal year 2024 budget, is used for education or re-entry programs. Steinberg said that while the DOC's population has continued to decline over the years, its budget has continued to rise. He said there is not a lot of transparency about where that money goes.
"It's discrimination at its highest peak"
State records show that of the 5,765 sentenced inmates, more than 60%, or 3,494, are African American or Hispanic. A population that advocates say continues to struggle to get parole or early release without having the opportunity to show they have new skills and education.
Hudson said "It's typically what happens to black and brown folks all the time. It's discrimination at its highest peak. It's institutional racism, you know, structural racism."
The Department of Correction said that it does not comment on pending litigation, but in court filings, the department denied allegations of retaliation.
The DOC also said that an incarcerated individual's personal program plan is based on the department's assessment of identified educational, work, and substance use treatment needs as well as programmatic availability at various facilities.