 and welcome on James Milan this episode of justice in the balance I get to talk to somebody that we've been trying to get to for a while and that is Elizabeth Matos who is the executive director of prisoners legal services here in Massachusetts and prisoners legal services lies right at the nexus of a number of issues that we have been talking to other folks about it's part of this series and so we're particularly glad to welcome Elizabeth to join joining us today thanks for being here thanks so much for having me we really appreciate it and we do understand that you are among the the number of people who are busier as opposed to less busy in this COVID-19 era than you were before so we particularly appreciate your time let me ask you just at the outset one of the themes of conversations we've been having on the topic of what is going on inside our prisons with regard to COVID-19 one of the themes has clearly been that this is particularly tough work for folks like yourselves those advocating for prisoners rights and health because so much of our society has adopted a viewpoint that they don't that these these folks are less of a priority than other populations I'd like to start by just asking you I'm sure you've thought about how you to respond to that and so I just like you to make your argument for why it is that people should not be considering our prison our imprisoned population in that way sure thanks so much for allowing me to start there so I guess I would first start from really practical place which is that thousands of people literally probably over 10 thousand individuals go in and out of jails and prisons in our state every single day there are three shifts in the prisons and jails excuse me and so people are coming in and out every day for their shifts their medical personnel coming in and out there's about 6,000 correctional officers across the state who work in these facilities there are a number of people who have to go in and out of correctional jails and prisons correctional facilities every single day and they're going back to their homes and to their families to their children to their communities they're going to the grocery store they're going to the gas station they're going wherever they need to go and their spouses maybe health care workers in fact many of them are and and have some have even reached out to us anonymously with many concerns about how things have been going in the jails and prisons and so we have to think about that the thousands of people going in and out who if the infection is spreading of the virus inside prisons and jails just more and more correctional staff are also going to be infected and they're going to be bringing that back to their communities and then of course you shouldn't forget the fact that this isn't a stagnant population people are released from prison and jail every single day because they complete their sentences they do their time and they want to live out their lives and they go home and we don't that hasn't stopped to during COVID was it legally can't you can't keep someone past their release date for any legal reason because that's illegally hindering their freedom so people are going home to their families and their communities every single day and so the infection or spreading of COVID-19 inside prisons and jails does nothing to help stemming the spread of COVID-19 in the larger community and where we all live so it's just makes sense to have an aggressive policy around preventing the spread of COVID-19 in prisons and jails just in a very practical sense and from a moral standpoint there are a number of reasons why we need to be valuing all lives the same including individuals in our prisons and jails and if you think about it you know there are people who may have done a 10 to 15 year sentence for a violent offense who wrapped that sentence completed that sentence in January or February went home and now they're home with their families moving out with their lives and in quarantining safely at home versus someone who happens to still be incarcerated or to be incarcerated during COVID-19 and the risk to their health and safety is astronomically higher as a result of when they're incarcerated and that is the default of their own so it depends on how we look at this public health crisis and I think the problem is that many people are looking at it as strictly a public safety issue not really understanding that public safety and public health are very much intertwined and if we don't address the public health piece of this then there will be a bigger public safety issue so there's that and then there's the other the other reason which is that 96% of people who are incarcerated are coming home on this is very very stressful for folks inside and for all their family members who are on the phone every single day with clients and they have family members and loved ones calling every day very worried about their loved ones this population is disproportionately chronically ill and we have the highest percentage of elderly prisoners in the country as well we need to care because it just isn't fair to give people a death sentence sort of put people unnecessarily at risk when they many of them can be very safely released there are risk assessments done on a daily basis inside prisons and jails and so there are lots of people who are considered already to be a low risk to public safety or who are due out in a matter of weeks anyway who have been approved for parole even but not released hundreds of people who've already already proven themselves to be worthy of parole but are just still sitting in prisons and jails there are lots of people who can be released safely and who have homes and families to go to but we are not acting to release those people and it just makes very little sense to have everyone else literally everyone else abiding by social distancing guidelines but yet we know that that's not possible prisons and jails and we're allowing that to continue yeah I think before we dive into more of the nitty gritty here just one last note on top of what you were saying and that is you know I think people have a tendency we in general have a tendency to view the prison population in a monolithic way and I think it's important for people to understand that there are of course violent criminals who have been adjudicated and are serving long sentences and deservedly so but there are that there are very many people who find themselves in our prisons and jails who again do not pose a risk necessarily to public safety and instead you know there's a whole confluence of reasons we can go into that in some other interview perhaps but a bunch of reasons that we as a society may not need to worry about as much and I think folks don't you know fail a lot of the time to make any distinction there so noting that let me move on and to ask you to tell us a little bit more about what it is that makes what the conditions are within our jails and prisons that are making these populations particularly vulnerable to the ravages of COVID-19. Sure so I can definitely get more into the social distancing and hygiene conditions inside but I just wanted to if I could go back to that last point you made sure of course yeah there are many people who have not who are not serving sentences for violent offenses who are incarcerated but oftentimes it's a very false distinction there are people who are charged with possession of a firearm or an assaultant battery that is you know people have the children in school who are charged with assault and battery for a nine-year-old you know pushing another child so I think there are lots of layers and ways that you can peel off what a violent offense is and then of course there's more serious grade of that but even within that population we have a risk assessment process someone doesn't necessarily remain a danger to society for the rest of their lives because they were committed of a violent offense they were convicted of a violent offense there and we have a number of formerly incarcerated people who have started community support groups have started food banks have started all kinds of things who had served sentences for violent offenses and who are a gem to the community and into helping people reenter society safely and productively and give back to the community so I just wanted to kind of highlight that because I think that is it's often a false dichotomy to to I mean it is important to recognize there are people serving long sentences for nonviolent offenses and then that is problematic as well but also that we shouldn't also paint all quote unquote violent offenders with the same brush and assume that they are all public safety threats because they're not an impact again they're released every day because our system says that that enough that is enough time that they have spent serving their sentence so thanks for that clarification yeah of course but moving on to the the conditions issue so at first you know we from the very beginning of this crisis were in touch with the executive branch of governor's office with the Department of Correction with sheriffs DA's and all of that about various things we thought needed to happen very very soon to protect people's lives and one was of course ensuring the ability to socially distance by releasing people who can safely be released but also access to soap there are many prisoners who are indigent and I think people don't realize that incarcerated people have to pay for hygiene products unless you're indigent and then if you're indigent you receive periodically packages of you know hygiene material that lasts you about a week but if you're washing your hands more and all of that there was just insufficient access to to soap and water and of course no hand sanitizer until very recently and it was you know said in the beginning we can't offer hand sanitizer it's not safe because you can manipulate it to do this or that and so there was a lot of pushback especially in the beginning on things that everyone was saying at least in the public health community were an absolute necessity to stemming the the spread of the COVID-19 and eventually their hand sanitizer was installed in all of the prisons and they believe it's also in all of the jails now but but there are other issues right these are not facilities that are structured in a way to allow for good high to allow for good sanitation or social distancing right they're communal bathrooms they're communal showers or communal sinks or communal toilets there's communal eating spaces the cells are shared there's you know dormitory settings and almost you know majority of the prisons and jails and so all of that is highly problematic and also you know lack of access to cleaning supplies so there are many changes that have been made by the Department of Correction many sheriffs have certainly done much more than they have had to do in the past keep things clean but you know I want to point out something that we also raised in our lawsuit which is that the Department of Public Health has for a very long time cited many violations of their standards that of the DOC and many county jails in terms of just overcrowding so there's design capacity standards that we've been exceeding for many many years even though the numbers are incarcerating people have actually gone down over the last five to ten years we're still over capacity which means that we cannot house everyone without putting them in cells together and so we've exceeded design capacity in that way and and that's part of the reason why it continues to spread and the number of infection numbers have gone up doubled in the last month because people can't socially distance in the way that the DOC has been addressing that in some county jails as well is to impose a lockdown which is solitary confinement for everyone and people spending 23 to 23 and a half hours a day locked in their cells without access to very much to do and that has been for over six weeks now seven weeks in a very austere conditions while people are struggling with mental health issues there have been lots of suicide attempts and unfortunately some completed suicides these are very difficult conditions and this can't be the way we address this public health crisis yeah I can just interject for one second you know it reminds me of the fact that going back for a number of years now in public affairs programming here at ACMI we've been talking to folks who've been concerned about solitary confinement as one of the number of issues that need to be addressed so that practice of solitary confinement and we have heard over that time about just how debilitating and and you know just inhuman in sense or certainly inhumane those kinds of conditions are so to have that de facto being what's going on in this case you know is just again a reminder of just how bad that is for the human spirit and probably body so excuse yeah there's plenty of research that it causes permanent damage to the brain but also has lots of physiological impacts as well especially people who are chronically ill I mean it just exacerbates health conditions in many different ways so this it's not a sustainable situation and it's also a violation of constitutional rights right so we can't protect people's health and safety by exacerbating their health and safety in other ways and so we need to figure something else out and I think that's why the public health community and public health experts were actually the first to call for decarceration and that's why many countries released tens of thousands of people from their prisons because they knew what was coming and they think we're politically entrenched here and we're still digging our way out of tough-on-crime politics in you know mass incarceration policies and I think that's why we've been very slow to do what many other countries have done so we hope this movement soon yeah so on that issue what you know here we are in Massachusetts Massachusetts has a particular reputation within the United States for progressiveness and progressivism and innovation in different areas we have a number of sheriffs in different counties here who are practicing innovative practices around rehabilitation you know all kinds of programs of that sort so one would think that we would be you know that the situation would be better in some way in this in this state than in some in others is that the case no I think we have a very I think it's generous to say a mixed bag on criminal justice issues you know we passed criminal justice reform in 2018 but it was quite a battle to get a lot of those reforms through and there's pushback now in trying to undo some of those changes so Massachusetts has had a history of being very tough on crime and we had the Willie Horton days and more recently Dominic Sonelli days where you know we have this habit of being reactionary or having knee-jerk reactions to a negative event that happened not because of a systemic failure but because of an aberration perhaps in the protection that should have existed or you know or for some other reason but the response to them becomes systemic crackdown and then it takes many years to undo that and I think that's why we're stuck where we are today and for example prior to you know back in the 1980s and prior to the Willie Horton incident really blowing up Massachusetts had a very successful and extensive furlough program where incarcerated people would be released for short periods of time to go home and spend time with their families and even even lifers even people serving you know sentences for murder for going home and spending time with their families and that's because the system was really designed on rehabilitation and recidivism lowering recidivism and understanding that connection with families was directly correlated with positive adjustment in in prisons and jails and also in lowering recidivism rates and in fact our recidivism rates were significantly lower than than they have been since our recidivism rates are in the upper 30s now and they were in the low 20s and even in the teens during that program and when we had you know higher rates much higher rates of incarceration so you know that's just one example but a pretty major example of how one incident really set us back in terms of having evidence-based and sound the sound policies around the criminal legal system and around incarceration specifically in that there have been some improvements when it's taken a whole lot of effort and quite frankly we a waste of a whole lot of money to to make those improvements and we still have quite a ways to go you know we've been talking to advocates such as yourself of course but also to government officials as part of this series and then looking at this issue the the those officials have offered assurances that they are being responsible and cautious in reacting to this and have cited you know reductions in prison populations or jail populations such that more prisoners are not having to share cells etc what's your reaction to that I mean that's just complete I don't know where that's coming from like yes of course the just statistics of it the the rates of incarceration have gone down here in Massachusetts and in most other states as well and thankfully but they're still astronomically high we're still among the highest in the in the world in terms of our rates of incarceration that hasn't changed and so we're behind the eight ball there still in terms of actually having sound evidence-based policies around how we deal with you know quote-unquote criminal behavior but I'll also say that it all it doesn't mean that people aren't sharing cells as much as they were before there are whole units that are closed right now even during COVID-19 entire units and sections of prisons and jails that are unused with empty cells because it is that people because it's more efficient for them to double bunk people or triple bunk or have people in dormitories so more efficient for their use of resources like security personnel things like that right mm-hmm and I'll say Massachusetts also is among the top states in the country for what we spend on corrections the budget is enormous and it has gone up every year despite the incarceration rates going down in our state so resources get spent where they get spent but as you can see with COVID-19 it's been a struggle to get resources allocated to where they should be allocated and now the resources argument is being used to keep people incarcerated so we'd rather spend seventy thousand dollars per head to incarcerate someone than to figure out how to provide safe housing for people who we know are not a risk to public safety there's something very wrong with that and so I think the problem is that we would prefer to keep doing business as usual rather than be creative to address and have more practical evidence-based policies around how we handle incarceration or decarceration you know we've been very creative and have managed to put resources into nursing homes we're definitely something that should have happened earlier on in concrete settings or as obvious we were going to have more spread of COVID-19 but that's really been absent in the prison and jail context and the only reason is because we value those lives less 96% of those individuals come back to our communities yeah on that theme as well I'm wondering and I want to preface this by saying if you choose not to answer that's fine we understand but we're wondering about the variation in different counties here in Massachusetts and whether there is there are county or counties that you would point to and say okay those guys are on the right track or that's that's you know that those are series of policies and procedures we can support if any such exist and and which county or counties might be on the opposite end of that spectrum that's hard question because you know each county is doing its own thing as you say and it's hard to really understand what they're doing unless you're dialoguing with each of the sheriffs or superintendents and there's even though there's been reporting requirements to the SJC there's been a lot of discussion even there as to how different counties are reporting information differently I do think there are some sheriffs who were more aggressive in the beginning in terms of sanitation and finding you know access finding ways to provide access to hand sanitizer distributing masks and spreading the population out and I think you know but some of those the could share of contusion for middle sex for example I think was somewhat aggressive I had spoken with with Worcester County as well and I think they were doing a lot early on around sanitation but also thinking that they were going to keep the virus from entering the count the county the House of Correction but you know they haven't done much testing there so part of the issue is that a number of counties have done little to no testing at all and so we really don't know what the infection rates are of what's happening inside if there are whole units of sick people who just are sick and we don't know what from so it's hard to understand you know what is really going on in some of these places and but I think it's very it's very possible that where in some facilities where the numbers are much lower when they have spread people out the infection rates are lower and where people have been more aggressive because they have a much higher population like Middlesex and Essex County for example in Suffolk their infection rates are higher despite you know in spite of all the things they made around sanitation and hygiene and I think that's because of the social distancing problem and highlights the fact that no matter what you do around sanitation and hygiene unless you can create social distancing it's going to continue to spread and that has been one of the most frustrating conversations to have repeatedly during this time with folks is to have legislators and policymakers and people in the executive branch keep saying over and over again look we're going to do the best we can around hygiene and sanitation and gonna hold DOC and the sheriffs accountable to what they're doing on hygiene and sanitation and that's how we're going to play this and and without really acknowledging that that is putting people's lives at risk because they're denying them the ability to socially distance so so I think that's I guess my answer on the on the counties and of course we're seeing a lot out of Bristol County that's problematic so force testing and in issues with detainees and with others and I also think some sheriffs are much better at keeping information from the public than others so again it's hard to know what's really going on but I do think that some sheriffs are much more aggressive in the beginning and have released more people quite frankly have worked more closely with their local DA's to release more individuals and that has given them more space to socially distance. I was asking about sheriffs at least in part because it's part of the next thing that I want to ask you about which is okay so which levers need to be pulled here you know to to most efficiently or effectively address these issues so the major players as far as I understand it would include sheriffs and DA's in their respective you know ambits but then also obviously the governor and the and the and the legislature etc so in whatever order you you would like just explain to us you know what needs to happen as far as you're concerned and what in what order in order to be able to if we were going to really be able to address this so I think there's more that can be done everywhere in the county jails but certainly in the Department of Correction where very few of any people have actually been released in response to COVID so I think the focus is on the governor and on pressuring the parole board and the Department of Correction to be more aggressive about releasing people and in creating the opportunity to socially distance so certainly I think those are the levers that are most important right now I think the DA's can continue to do a lot too as can the sheriffs but right now the governor holds absolute emergency powers right now and other governors have been more proactive on this commuted sentences and ordered releases of vulnerable populations and and this governor hasn't so I think the governor is certainly someone who needs to be pressured more and I think he has been of the mindset that this is not a population that he wants to release or that is worthy of of those protections so so I think that is a problem Department of Correction the parole board have had the ability to do more as well but I think they've made it very clear that without the governor's pushing they're not going to do that and the governor has been very clear to support them in not doing very much and I it seems patently clear from what you have been saying and especially in the last ten minutes that really whatever measures are taken if they don't address the fundamental issue of reducing the number of men and women occupying the same space within our jails and prisons such that they are able to maintain some kind of distance that nothing else is you know however much we invest in other options it's not going to be affected that is the thing that needs to be addressed first yeah that's why we're all home right and we could all be in our offices washing our hands ten times a day and cleaning surfaces but that's not why the governor sent us home I mean they sent us home because social distancing was the way that we were going to most effectively stem the spread of COVID-19 and that's why we've quite frankly been okay with allowing the economy to free fall is because we're trying to save people's lives and we're trying to prevent more catastrophic damage from from the spread of COVID-19 in our communities but that same lens has not been applied to prisons and jails and and yes the only way that we're going to see the infection rates come down and while we're not you know locking people down for 23 and a half hours a day in a very inhumane way is to allow for social distancing by releasing people particularly in the more overcrowded prisons and Department of Correction so that we don't continue to have this problem we also have to remember prisons and jails are in a totally different trajectory there's not at the curve we're not flattening the curve and none of that is happening right now because we haven't done enough testing to even know what's going on in in this kind of congregate setting that is starting to happen now and we're starting to get you know a better picture of the numbers but infection the infection numbers are going up as we learn more and the infection rates are going up and even if they say you know they stay stagnant at some point it's likely because of the lockdown and again we're going to have much bigger repercussions from that if we don't end the lockdown because people are we're getting lots of calls of people being suicidal and having a very difficult time until health wise you know it's just not something you can sustain for this long and be okay so we have to do something differently we can't continue to do what we're doing now well as we wind this conversation down let me ask you what how are you I guess personally but also prisoners legal services how are you marshaling your own energies and resources to exert as much pressure as you can I know you referenced earlier a lawsuit that you have filed I know you have said just just very recently that more pressure needs to be put on the governor in some way so how you know what approaches are you guys taking thank you for asking it's been really really busy in terms of you know all working from home of course and we've got you know people kids at home and juggling lawsuits and and also the part intake volume has gone up people are calling us very concerned about their health and safety they are people who are going through chemotherapy while they're incarcerated or having other very serious health issues and and feeling scared because another thing that the DOC is doing is they're actually housing COVID positive people in the same units with non-COVID people and the air just ventilate there's no ventilation so the air just circulates in that unit and and also the staff go from cell to cell so there's a lot of concerns about cross-contamination which has already been demonstrated to be occurring right now so our intake levels are much higher and it's been very busy in the office and so of course we're doing a lot of individual advocacy for people but we're doing lots of systemic advocacy as well meaning letters to the governor of course but also to the executive office of public safety to legislators to the Department of Correction commissioner to the sheriffs and the DA's and to secretary Sutter's as well and we've you know emails and phone calls supporting the work of other organizations and who are working with the families and loved ones and people who are incarcerated to also raise raise the fact that this is not an issue that just affects people who are incarcerated their families are struggling as well whose children are waiting for them to come home and it's caused a lot of anxiety for kids who have incarcerated parents who are frankly having a difficult time trying to do their schoolwork at home and worrying about the lives of their their parents so I think those repercussions all often don't get considered so we're doing a lot of that work as well and of course filed the lawsuit because another lawsuit that had been filed only affected pre-trial detainees in the counties and so there's really no no releases happening in the entire Department of Correction and again that's where a lot of the overcrowding is so we're actually waiting for a decision in day now and we'll take it from there but we're going to continue to push on the executive and the governor there's also legislation that was filed House Bill 46-52 and that is an option as well but that's the bill that's urging large-scale decarceration yes for vulnerable populations or people who are you know categorically a lower risk perhaps so but it would look at cases individually and release people depending on you know low low safety risk so that bill is pending in the judiciary committee right now but we've also you know collaborate with others to support the work that they're doing other litigation happening across the state of course we're also worried because this is a tough going to be very tough budget year and we do receive some funding from the state so we're hoping that we can continue this work and all the other work we were doing before COVID and that we're struggling to to maintain for our clients now but we do have a lot of resources on our website I'll put it here in our chat but it's PLSMA.org and we have a COVID page there that goes through a lot of the work that we've been doing and a lot of the police for our public safety officials and others to do the right thing and we hope we see that soon. We'll make sure that we can direct folks to to the website and to the resources there. One last thing for me and that's I'm curious about one thing that you just said and that is you were citing the fact that it's not just prisoners themselves whatever amount of sympathy our society has or doesn't for that population they have children and as you said the children are suffering at minimum from anxiety or worse in in this time and around these policies I'm wondering if you find that the folks that you're trying to influence or persuade are any more amenable to the fact that it is children who are being impacted by this because I think again whereas as a society we may choose to regard our imprisoned population as not as worthy of our consideration because other things or other people I should say excuse me that's not how we feel about children so I'm just wondering well I think people have either they don't think about that they think of people are incarcerated as kind of being in their own silos and being disconnected from communities but you know things happen to everyone and I also think part of it is structural racism well structural racism of course is part of all of this but even in terms of how we perceive things of those you know people in power are largely white it's changing somewhat but that's still the case and I think of this as a black and brown problem that's a little more isolated from their lives and so they don't necessarily understand or have compassion for it but also I think there the there are many policymakers and decision makers who have had a loved one or someone close to them incarcerated and they they do get it many of them do get it and and have been allies in this because they realize how much damage can be done in how the system is not you know at its best I think some people come out and make something of their lives and can attribute some of that maybe to their experience in prison but by and large it is not a rehabilitative system it's not if we care about rehabilitation we believe in it then we need to do much better than what we're doing now because all we're doing really is harming people more and that's not helping anyone when they come out including us so so yes I think we forget that the community is very much impacted by the harm being done to people incarcerated this has been a long conversation me again I'll just say one more time we appreciate you taking the time it's also been an important one of course I want to just wrap up by asking you or inviting you if there's anything that we have not touched upon or if there's any any message with which you'd like to leave our audience I invite you to to let us know now I do so there's one other thing that I think often gets overlooked here and it makes the conversation about incarceration difficult is also this kind of dichotomy between people are incarcerated and people have been victims many of us have been victims of crime including people in our office who do this work but the majority of our clients have also been victims literally the majority if you look at the statistics named 70 percent of men who are incarcerated reported very very traumatic experiences as children abuse up to you know 15 to 20 percent have been victims of child sexual abuse and that's for men it's much higher for women who are incarcerated so I think we need to think about that too then what we're dealing with is people who have experienced extensive trauma before being incarcerated and that doesn't excuse decisions that have been made but of course it plays into the ability to make better decisions and uh in what we're in it calls into question what we're doing in terms of supporting people and supporting families and putting the resources into community-based supports and rehabilitation in the community versus in carceral settings and how much sense that really makes when we're dealing with what's largely a very traumatized population and that is in no disrespect to people in the community who have suffered from violent you know violence and trauma against them but I think we need to understand it's a spectrum and it isn't like there are just perpetrators and victims there's a lot of overlap there an important point with which to close thanks again for your time I've been talking to Elizabeth Matos she is the executive director of prisoners legal services here in massachusetts I'm James Milan this is justice in the balance thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time thank you