By The Numbers: Yearly costs associated with current Massachusetts sentencing guidelines
$1.5 billion for incarcerating offenders for longer sentences (relative to 1990)
$900 million for incarcerating more drug offenders (relative to 1985)
$160 million for moving inmates to higher security facilities (relative to 1990)
$200 million in uncollected taxes from lost wages (relative to 1987)
*Source: MassInc Report: Crime, Cost and Consequences, 2013.
When Massachusetts legislators got tough on crime in the late ’80s and early ’90s, they passed laws that doled out longer mandatory sentences for low-level drug offenders.
Now, after the percentage of – the state’s population living behind bars has quadrupled and prison costs have risen by an estimated $2.7 billion, legislators and policy makers are re-thinking the state’s punitive drug laws and mandatory sentencing.
State Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz (D–Jamaica Plain) and Rep. Mary Keefe (D–Worcester) are co-sponsoring legislation that would repeal mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, reduce certain low-level felonies to misdemeanors and reinvest the savings from those reforms into job training, youth jobs and other programs aimed at workforce development.
“What we’re trying to do with this bill is to think about how we as a state can reform criminal justice and save money that can be used to reinvest into communities,” Keefe said. “If we continue at the current rate of growth, we will be spending an additional $2 billion on new prisons.”
Chang-Diaz said the impetus for the bill came from constituents who are concerned about the state’s growing prison population and the cost of incarcerating an increasing number of Massachusetts residents at $47,000 per inmate per year.
“People are asking why we’re spending $47,000 per year locking people up, but there’s only one social worker among 16 schools,” she said.
Groups including the Worcester-based Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement, the Boston Workers Alliance and Youth Against Mass Incarceration have highlighted both the rising costs of incarceration and the disparate rates of incarceration among communities of color. Chang-Diaz cited legal scholar Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, as an example of the increased awareness of racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
“There’s a bright light shining on the issues of racial disparities in the criminal justice system,” she said.
African Americans make up 8 percent of the state’s population and 28 percent of those in Department of Corrections custody. Latinos are 10 percent of the state’s population and 25 percent of those incarcerated.
In addition to repealing mandatory minimum sentences, the bill also would end the automatic five-year driver’s license suspensions for people convicted of drug crimes.
The money saved by reducing the state’s prison population would be redirected to community-based programs, including those offering job training, transitional jobs and apprenticeship programs, youth jobs, job creation and programs that help young people stay in school.
“Thousands of people would be impacted by these reforms,” Chang-Diaz said.
Keefe and Chang-Diaz filed the legislation Jan. 16, and currently are seeking co-sponsors for the bill. The legislation received an endorsement from at least one politician outside the building.
“I thank Sen. Chang-Diaz and Rep. Keefe for having the courage to take a stand on these important issues,” said Suffolk County Sheriff Tompkins in a press statement. “The truth is, we put far too many people in jail who should be remanded to diversionary, substance abuse or mental health programs. Restoring judicial discretion to drug sentencing would allow judges to determine the best punishment on a case-by-case basis.”
