4/17/2024 0 Comments Mass bill of particulars![]() ![]() It focused on establishing new ways for inmates to earn “good time” credits to shave time over their sentence, and setting up more programming for them while incarcerated. In February 2017, the four leaders unveiled a bill resulting from the policy review. The one area the four leaders could agree to examine was reentry services in prison and other measures aimed at smoothing inmates’ transition out of jail and reducing recidivism rates. Massachusetts has the second lowest incarceration rate in the country. Gants has been outspoken in criticizing what he says are racial disparities in system.ĭeLeo was more circumspect in articulating where he stood, but Baker never seemed enthused about a wide-ranging reform package, and repeatedly emphasized the state’s very low incarceration rate compared with other states. Rosenberg and Gants long favored a more sweeping review of criminal justice policy that includes sentencing reforms. ![]() Sharp differences were present from the start among the four leaders who launched the policy review – Baker, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, then-Senate President Stan Rosenberg, and Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants. The contrasting messages reflect the political crosscurrents that have been at play throughout the criminal justice reform conversation, which was kicked off nearly three years ago when state leaders invited policy experts from the nonpartisan Council of State Governments to lead an examination of Massachusetts policies. ![]() That tone of uplift was largely missing in the comments from Baker, who focused on the new fentanyl penalties and the “many other public safety priorities we filed” that are included in the bill. “And I am proud to say that today, 50 years later, those same hopes and dreams are being realized in the State House as we sign this very momentous piece of legislation.” “On that day 50 years ago, hopes were crushed, dreams were shattered,” she said. Claire Cronin, the House cochair of the Judiciary Committee, pointed out that the House and Senate passed the bill last week on the 50 th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. “It’s about cutting the chains that hold people down from trying to get back on their feet, and it’s about protecting public safety.” Will Brownsberger, cochairman of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary and a lead sponsor of the legislation. “This bill is about lifting people up instead of locking people up,” said Sen. While Democrats highlighted the many provisions of the bill geared toward lightening the heavy hand that the criminal justice system has applied to offenders, Baker seemed the reluctant reformer when it came to those changes, focusing instead on the penalties for fentanyl and carfentanil trafficking and other new sanctions in the bill. But one might be forgiven at points for wondering whether officials were talking about the same bill. There was lots of bipartisan bonhomie at Friday’s ceremony. It also includes new sanctions for repeat drunken drivers, and imposes a new mandatory minimum sentence for assault and battery on a police officer. It includes a new mandatory minimum sentence for trafficking the deadly opioids fentanyl and carfentanil. The bill’s provisions are not aimed entirely at relieving the impact of the criminal justice system on offenders. Under the new law, that will increase to $1,200. Currently, theft of goods worth at least $250 qualifies as a felony. It raises the threshold for felony larceny, which has not been adjusted in decades. The bill also includes new reforms aimed at reducing solitary confinements stays in prisons creates new diversion programs to steer low-level offenders away from criminal penalties. It will allow criminal records to be expunged for some offenses committed when an individual was younger than 21. It creates reforms targeted at preventing defendants who have not yet been tried from being held solely because they can’t afford bail. It eliminates several mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, and raises the age at which children can be charged in juvenile court from 7 to 12. The bill touches on nearly every part of the criminal justice system, with an aim of reducing number of people entering it or getting unnecessarily caught in its web. 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.įlanked at the State House by more than a dozen lawmakers from both parties, Baker said, “Viewed as a whole, this bill takes our criminal justice system and makes it better.” At the same time, he said there are parts of the measure he is troubled by and announced that he is filing new legislation to address those. Charlie Baker signs criminal justice legislation at the State House on Friday. ![]()
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