 Hello everyone and welcome. I'm James Milan. This is Justice in the Balance and today we are talking with Lois Ehrens. Lois is the founding director of the Real Cost of Prisons Project and she is here to help shed light for us today on a world that remains largely invisible to most people and that is being brought into the light a little bit more by the current conditions attendant on the pandemic that we're all dealing with but that is affecting the incarcerated population and populations in ways that are much more dramatic on a number of levels than what the rest of us or many of us lucky enough to be in our own homes are dealing with. So first of all Lois thanks very much for joining us we appreciate it. Thank you for asking me. I'm sure you're really busy these days. It's amazing how many folks we talk to who in this world of physical isolation just because of the nature of the work that you do you turn out to be busier rather than less busy. Actually there are a lot of busy people. I mean really really busy people here in Massachusetts and people all around the country that are doing work to decarcerate people. A lot of us have been doing that work before this and so now there's a greater emergency for decarceration and so there is there are a huge number of people thousands thousands around the country that are doing this work and so I'm one of those people but we are we're working all the time. Ten 11 hours a day seven days a week we're all home this is what we're doing. Yes I know that your project itself is 20 years old now so obviously you have been at this for a long time way before again the public attention may have been drawn more to this issue as is the case at the moment and let's get advantage of that and and talk about what is the story that is going on so what is happening right now just give us a quick sense if you can of what's going on behind prison walls right now here in Massachusetts. Well what's going on is there about I mean the first thing I should say is there are about little over 14 000 people incarcerated in Massachusetts and half of those people are in county jails and half are in state prisons and the thing that unites all of them is that nobody can maintain six feet of distance between any other person and unless even if somebody I mean there are a number of prisons and jails now that are on lockdown that is people are locked in their cells often two people in a cell so that makes it completely impossible but even when they're so-called locked down people and even jails are coming to their cells people still have to be walked out by prison guards to take a shower often those people are handcuffed so people have to handcuff them they have to walk them to the shower they have to be in a shower possibly you know with other people all around them they probably want to make phone calls often they have to leave their cell to make phone calls so people are coming in contact with people even that people that are so-called locked down there's this idea if you lock people in a cell even if they're in a cell by themselves that somehow they're not going to be in contact with other people they will be in contact with other people and some of the people most of the people often that they're in contact with our staff and so guards and so that means it's risky it's especially risky for the incarcerated people because the guards are coming in and out every day and even if their temperatures are being taken which supposedly they are and even if people are wearing masks which supposedly cards are although we hear otherwise they still if they're having their temperatures taken they can be asymptomatic or so they can be walking in with with the coronavirus and infecting everybody that they're around and so because of the climate of jails and prisons I mean this idea that you can be safely set apart is it's it's I mean it's basically it's an absurd idea right so it's like trying to stop this tsunami that's happening by you know taking people's temperatures yeah it seems certainly in conversations that we've had on our public affairs series this one and one on criminal justice reform that we've done over the last few years it's clear that that both public sympathy for and attention that they're willing to pay and activism around prisoners rights is a tough is a tough sell for lots of parts of the public but hopefully this is drawing people's attention to the fact that the situation that you've just described is is antithetical to what we are supposed to be doing in terms of isolating ourselves and taking all of the measures that we're supposed to be taking in order to keep ourselves and others safe that simply it seems is not possible as you have just described within that context right I mean one of the things that you know the the sheriffs and the department of correction they are trying to ostensibly do the things that they can do to try to mitigate what is what I feel and what many many many other people feel is going to be catastrophe uh where there could be out of that 14 000 people there could be thousands of people dying dying unnecessarily dying because um they weren't let out uh people that probably shouldn't have been in there in the first place and that is people being held because they can't make bail and or people who are being held because they have a probation violation a dirty urine or a miss meeting or something like that and so those people are risking death because they're not being released in a in a way in a quick enough way and so I mean I don't know I mean it's hard to say what it is that's going to make uh the general public uh feel like this is an important thing that it's a human rights issue that it's a humanity issue um because people can compartmentalize people that are in jail and prison as as what criminals and criminals that are deserving of the kind of punishment that people in massachusetts basically think it's all right for people other people in massachusetts to administer and other people to live through and so I don't I don't know if this is going to be the thing I mean I have to say that with all of the work that people have been doing since it became clear to us let's say six or seven weeks ago or I don't know at all these days have sort of blurred I mean that's complete blur uh but whatever it's been maybe up to two months where we realized uh what was going to happen and the kind of work that's being done by so many people the response to that to all of our work has been almost nothing and so um so it's I mean there's been a response of all kinds of people organizing to put pressure on the powers that be and those powers are the governor the department of correction the sheriffs the district attorneys the parole board all of whom have a role in um and could play a big role in releasing people and by releasing people it means that they can be in a place where they're less likely to get infected that is out here with the rest of us doing what we need to do and for the people that are going to be left inside which is going to be that even in the best of scenarios you know even if we got everything we wanted it's going to be thousands and thousands of people and if there were fewer of those fewer thousands there would be at least some possibility that some kind of version of social distancing not six feet but some kind of version of mitigation of the worst kinds of things uh could take place so it would have you know two releasing people would have two impacts for the people at least and people inside so you you clearly decarceration releasing people is is is something that you and others that you've cited have been working hard to accomplish way before this of course um I think people can understand uh fairly I assume fairly easily understand how it would benefit uh those who are in uh jail at the moment for very minor offenses and for the other things that you've already mentioned that could or should uh be released um or who could or should be released in order to benefit all I think most people can see the benefit for those folks in getting out of that situation um make the argument please for for why it's better for everybody for that to happen why is it the address the concerns that people would have about having folks who were in that situation who were in prison released back into communities and therefore at least potentially uh coming into contact with with others and who knows at what risk you mean on the risk that they that they're coming out and they're infected right and right that they've been in a in a situation which is everybody would acknowledge high risk and now they're coming back into communities and one assumes without super you know without any kind of close supervision necessarily so I I'm just assuming that's the crux of what people uh who who would be very you know uh either frightened or at least concerned about this possibility uh I figure you've probably had to think about uh about how you respond to to folks right I mean I think for I mean the first thing is I mean just say that there are people that are going to be released um uh regardless of whether they are sick or not that is their sentences are up or they're released because they um have gone through this process where they can be released uh uh their pretrial and they can be released on bail and so those people can't be kept and shouldn't be kept in prison or in jail uh because uh there's the possibility that they're that they're ill I think that they couldn't when people are released they could be tested if they were tested and if they were found to be positive ideally what we need to do and what people on the outside need to do and there's a lot of discussion going on about this now and this was one of the things that was asked of the governor recently and and there are people working on it most especially in the Boston area that there are thousands and thousands of empty rooms and those rooms are in hotels that have their own bathrooms they're in dorms that are empty and so there are people at the various colleges Tufts and Harvard and I don't think maybe BU but definitely Tufts and Harvard that are doing that kind of organizing now to uh work with their administration to see whether some of those dorms can be opened up to provide a place for people who are um being we hope more people being released from jail in prison and also people who um uh are homeless and um and so uh so that's part of what the work of some people are doing is to try to find a place and what we're saying is people need to be released and if people are sick they can you know self isolate and they can be in a room just like any of us that were tested positive would be self self isolated and there would be you know much less possibility of other people um of them coming in contact with other people than they would be if they were on the street or they would be if uh they were in jail where they were coming in contact with other people they're incarcerated with and they're coming in contact with staff every day I mean some I just read a statistic that in framing him now um no in the middle six county jail in bill ricka that six as of I don't know this was a day or two ago I mean the numbers are changing very very very fast as soon as they post them they're out of date so uh in the middle six jail there were six people incarcerated who tested positive in 21 staff yeah I mean so that's like a big a big difference and um in the in in framing him women's prison there are 22 women who are infected um and seven staff including two medical staff and that 22 22 number is more than 10 percent of the total population of framing him right now yeah that's a big number um and you know I don't know how much uh contact tracing and all of that is going on in those places um and how thorough it's happening if it's happening to try to contain it up for the people who are being infected but I mean I think the idea that we have to keep people locked up um to protect people outside is an unfortunate idea I think that people on the outside are working on trying to do this very thing provide ways for people to find a place live in a place stay stay in a place most of these colleges now um I've canceled their summer sessions and and so there's there's plenty of there are plenty of rooms out there yeah usually so right I mean we happen again this is one of the crazy consequences of an extraordinary situation that here you have one of the toughest places to find somewhere to live or stay in the country but now because again of this large disproportionately large college population we generally have here like you said they're all empty a lot of rooms available I mean thousands of rooms available thousands of rooms um I wanted sorry I wanted just to follow up on um on what you just cited because I was reading earlier I think you had pointed us towards this article about that situation you were just talking about at the women's prison in Framingham or uh at the jail um in which as you as you said an extraordinarily high number uh or high percentage of uh the prisoners are are are uh infected um are there any explanations for for for why that could be because that I think is very very even compared to other to the populations in other prisons I think uh I think there's an older population there women that have been sentenced have long sentences and so they're much more vulnerable just like other older people um they probably have longer people are in prison and this is true about other prisons in Massachusetts like Norfolk prison where I mean Massachusetts has the oldest prison population in the country I did not know that well and so this this is going to be one of the impacts of it as people have a lot of pre-existing medical conditions a lot of people who've been locked up for a really long time they're you know quote healthcare um has not been the best so that they would assume their immune systems are more vulnerable than many and they just have more things they have had more more respiratory things more heart problems more things that haven't been dealt with and some of those things in the past and you know have been dealt with serious illnesses I mean I know people that have that and have gone you know to try to go and get um medical care and they've been given you know two aspirants and so that isn't the way to deal with people's significant medical care or medical issues and if that accumulates over 10 years 20 years 30 years those people are going to be a lot more at risk and that's true about um and that's true about uh the women at Framingham and it's going to be true about the men at Norfolk that are an older population of people and I don't know I mean some point I don't know somebody could probably say this like how people have been grouped together how the women at Framingham you know whether they're really in close quarters because so much of the prison isn't such bad shape like whether they've been put in smaller and smaller spaces so they're much more apt to be able to you know be contagious you know other people get it so I don't know why they're other than the fact that people are older and they probably have a lot of pre-existing conditions yeah that that makes a lot of sense um you said earlier you know and rightly so that that the statistics are changing every time as you said every time it comes out it's outdated you know within a minute and within an hour whatever it is what are what are reliable sources for if our audience is interested in following up and reliable sources for that information uh the prisoners legal services uh the website is plsm a.org prisoners legal services messachusetts they have a page that's just a corona virus page now they're updating it all the time i'm pretty sure it links to an aclu page which also has their own page aclu of messachusetts about statistics about what's happening at every jail every prison i mean but there is a lag time i mean i noticed uh i'm in hampshire county and i can't remember what they said the number was but today there was a i mean hampshire county only has a couple hundred people in it now and um they said there were just a few people but today in the paper they said there were a lot of that 200 or so 11 people are infected in a small jail and um i'm sure i'm absolutely positively sure that some percentage of those they didn't say um are there pre-trial because i mean you just know that about yes because every jail and every prison i mean um has more i was just looking at the middle six numbers on april 14th there were uh 371 people pre-trial and 261 sentenced so the numbers pre-trial people always higher always higher than the number of sentenced people i mean sometimes 60 percent sometimes 70 percent so that's that's why and and these people at minimum at minimum should be there was a supreme traditional court decision on april third and they said that people that are being held pre-trial should be get get a new bail hearing within two days and mostly that is not happening i mean two days have passed that was april third and there are people that are being released but not it's it's not the the response is not nearly uh commensurate with the emergency and why is that do you think oh because uh the governor has done nothing about this um uh the guards union is resisting uh even though it's impacting them maybe i mean it's i know it doesn't make sense but nonetheless that's really i i mean you would have to interview them i can't i don't know why they i don't know why they are not doing more i mean to me this might seems like a possibility of a time where the jailers of the jailed there would actually be a confluence of their interests yeah you would think so but so far that has not happened uh the guards union has not come forward with this at all i mean they are behaving the way they they always behave um that prisoners are their adversaries and that people who advocate on behalf of prisoners are their adversaries i mean again i don't want to overly speculate but it does seem like it's kind of more of a knee jerk reaction on on the part of the of the their union it's an old me because it's an old me and and this doesn't seem to again be to the benefit of their very own constituents there i know maybe we were missing something who knows well i mean really they would have to speak for themselves uh i i can't i don't want to and i i can't can't understand their thinking so i can't even again to speculate on but i mean they're all of these they're all of these uh were in this situation because all of these actors that could be acting are not acting right so you were you were talking about the the governor sheriffs da's parole boards etc um are these these are the decision makers and the actors in this in this case i assume right absolutely absolutely is therefore the situation because there are a certain number of da's and a certain number of sheriffs obviously operating in all the different counties in massachusetts uh is it different county to county yeah yeah i mean you have someone like uh hodgson sheriff or bristol county you know who maintains that you know he's got no problem there and everybody should continue to be locked up and basically the sheriff so i'm in western mass the sheriff of hampton county who runs a big jail coachy his name is um he also says you know we've we've got this you know we're we're we're doing you know it's better for people to be in jail people are safer which of course is turning out to be not true i mean uh a last couple of days ago the sheriff of hampshire county kailene said people are people are safer in jail than there are they are out in the street well now there are 11 people that are infected in his jail so i mean it'd be hard for him to say this same thing so i mean some sheriffs i think uh are some da's and some sheriffs are um trying to release uh more people but other da's are behaving just the way they ought to behave and uh they're not really there are these bail hearings and they're coming up with all of these reasons why people shouldn't be released not because they're not holding dangerousness hearings or anything they're just coming up with these different reasons about why people shouldn't be released and so um you know and of course their lawyers lawyers can appeal those decisions but all of that takes time courthouses are closed some courthouses are closed you know so everything is taking longer just at the time when things need to be hurrying up things are slowing down because everything is slowed down right what's happening and i mean so another example i mean is the parole board the parole board has a lot of power to parole people 300 people have been on paper paroled by the parole board and they have not been released those people could become infected and die in prison because the parole board hasn't acted there are many people that have applied for medical parole compassionate release Massachusetts was i think the 49th out of 50 states to pass a compassionate release law we were i can't remember so we were one if not the last than the 49th and since that past um the department of correction has done um and the parole board have done everything that they can to thwart those releases uh people waiting dying people dying before this who should have gotten compassionate release died before they got got released they were able to be released and so this is the mentality of them even before this and so this is a continuation of that mentality both in terms of medical parole compassion release and also in terms of paroling people that are eligible for parole um help me understand a little bit better the the role of the parole board then because um my you said that 300 people have come up for parole and have not yet been released does the parole no they've been paroled they have been paroled sorry and so they're in like a step down or a pre-release and they have they have to wait for these certificates release and they haven't done that and so the parole board that that issues those certificates of release yeah yeah and they and so they haven't done that so i mean these are people that literally have been paroled but are still locked up and then they're and then they're all of these other people that could be that could be paroled if they had a chance to come before the parole board and if the parole board weren't intent which the parole board always is is instead of looking at the life of somebody the life that somebody has been living for the last 20 years or 25 years they are looking at what that person did when they were 20 years old and now they are 50 years old and so they are retrying these people based on a conviction from 20 years or 30 years ago and so um that's been the mentality of the the parole board and so they are disinclined to parole people uh because of the way that they think and act and so they um so this is even though this is again one of these huge emergencies in terms of a life and death situation they're not acting any different i mean so um they're all of these examples of here we have this huge emergency of people's lives and everybody uh is behaving not everybody we advocates people trying to you know do what we can do but nonetheless all of these other actors the actors that have their hands on the levers of power basically those in authority is what i think you're saying yeah they're they're doing businesses as usual and business and usual is not the right thing i mean people say you know which is true uh you know that people in massachusetts that massachusetts does not have the death penalty so massachusetts should not have the death penalty right i've read a quote that said massachusetts doesn't have it in law it may have it in fact in fact i should say uh if we if we are not more absolutely and that's that's right now yeah making decisions let me ask you um it seems to me you just you've you've very well described what you and advocates and the prisoners themselves are up against here including the fact that as you said all the systems and it's always systems that are operating here right all the systems are slowed down um whether it's courts uh lawyers filing appeals things being able to work their way through the process that all seems to be you know not uh not amenable to the kind of speed with which some things need to happen therefore it's it my sense is that the most important actors in this case might be the district attorney the district attorneys because they're the ones who can actually make something happen quickly am i right or wrong about that district attorneys always have a lot of power and they have a lot of power in this situation they could be acting proactively they could be being much more aggressive um about um releasing people and one of the things we asked for this was early on was people who have 60 days left on their sentence to release them you know like what difference is that going to make really i mean other than for the people that are released you know district attorneys should not be as aggressively opposing people's bail um people district attorneys could their their lawyers that are trying to um go in front of district attorneys to have those sentences of their some of their clients revised and revoked district attorneys don't have to be opposing all of that so there are all of these points thousands points where district attorneys all around the state could be doing something differently from what they're doing the other person that i we have to mention is the governor the governor has a power has powers that nobody else has the governor has everybody that's appointed on the parole board is appointed by the governor the governor can offer clemency which is uh which others other governors and other states are doing um so there are governors in states doing that right now yes yes in california they're doing it i'm there's a huge effort to try to get quomo to do it who i mean there's thousands and thousands of people that could receive clemency uh in illinois so yes there are i mean quomo has them but other governors are fritzker the governor of illinois is nusam is so there are other governors that are doing and i think eventually quomo will do it but i mean i don't know what's going to take them to actually do it but uh but but but baker could do this that's part of his power um and he part of his power i mean there's a law that will allow him to furlough people so he could be acting in a very in a proactive way to do these things um he could there's another law which there was a letter that was released two days ago by the aclu and the mass public health association that details all of these actions and powers that are reserved for the governor for the executive and he has at this point done none of those and it details what's happening around the country and also is the case law you can do this and here it's cited that you could do this and one of the things that is cited that he could do would be to um open up um schools and hotels uh for uh that are not being used if he wanted to i mean so there are all of these things that can that he can do and there's been a lot of pressure on him i mean so there was you know this letter from mass public health association yes oh i think it was yesterday or today the uh greater boston interreligious organization 70 was a letter of 70 clergy they had a meeting with baker not on 71 but i mean they represent 70 people signed on to this letter there was a letter of 176 boston area medical researchers and practitioners to baker there was you know a lot of letters from prisoners legal services and advocacy group and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that have been communicating with him saying let people go and and so far there has been nothing and so you know if people want to communicate with someone i would say the top person on my list uh would be the governor yes but so here's the conundrum right i mean we are looking i think and people who are listening to this i imagine uh will be interested in what can we do and it does seem like what you've just said is that pressure is being brought to bear on the governor and by influential people or organizations or groups of absolutely and yet it is not having an effect but nonetheless would you would you recommend that those listening who are exercised about this that they again communicate themselves by email or phone calls or whatever with the governor's office is that is that absolutely you can't leave a message on his phone machine because it's completely filled up but i can conveniently sell but you can write calls anymore not really taking phone calls uh from the public they're his constituents but yes and the other thing i would say is i mean there was one other thing that i wanted to mention there was a bill it's called h 4963 it was introduced by my rep lindsay sabadosa and it was and it calls for a lot of these things that we talked about you know releasing people 60 days people that are ill pregnant women you know all of these categories of people people can read the bill it's uh 4963 h 4963 sorry you said h 4963 and people can read that bill and um uh out of 200 legislators 30 or 29 signed on which is a very dismal number yeah so i mean at first we were looking with this bill we were looking to the legislature to try to do something themselves just like the governor has power just like the parole board has power the da's legislature has power and they had not exercised that power and they and so i think it's important for people who are concerned about this to write to their rep and to write to their senator and say this is is a tragedy waiting to happen and we want you to communicate with the governor and we want you to fast fast i mean now they're in this informal session they're not even really meeting you know so they to me they've except for like these 29 i mean or so i mean some others they've just advocated their power they've advocated their power yeah i don't know if our reps in this area who we speak to regularly and in fact earlier this week we were talking to our one of our two reps from arlington uh dav rogers uh and he criminal justice reform the rights of uh prisoners and those who are used even have been an area in which i know he and our other reps john garbally have been working i think i think he did i think he did um i'd be surprised if they weren't but i don't think rogers did um and the way people can find out is to go to the bill and it lists everybody that signed on so that's you can find out in a minute by just going there and looking or you can write them and ask them if they did and if they did thank them and if they didn't ask them why you know and if they didn't like that bill why if they didn't like this particular bill why they haven't come what a month ago i mean lindsay's bill was way over a month ago now um if they didn't like it um or they felt it should come out of the senate not the house or whatever all that is um you know why they didn't uh put together a bill that more people could support which they have not so um so i mean there are so many levels of possibility of action and but the reality is of um stonewalling denial uh in action that um it's very very very very sobering uh to know uh that this is what's happening in the state day after day after day as we see these numbers of people being affected we see now four people have died it's it's it's just going to be more it's going to be more and people won't be able to say i mean i hope people won't be able to say oh gee if we had only known about this you know we would have done something about it because the people in power do know about it and they have done nothing well sobering indeed and um frustrating undoubtedly to those of you who've long been in this you know working in this world and i just have to say very very very scary and terrifying for people who have loved ones in prisons i i am prison i i have a lot of good friends in norfolk prison friends of mine for almost 20 years people that i communicate with all the time all the time people doing fantastic work in there and i am very they're older older than me even some of them and um i am very concerned about what's going to happen to them and so there are many of us out here that are advocates but also friends and loved ones of people who are incarcerated who are really concerned about what's going to happen to them and their treatment inside if they get sick yeah and so important uh to get reminders again of that of the that very that very real pain um yes it is felt yes um i we're we're going to wrap up the conversation here i i uh almost feel i don't know almost embarrassed to ask you this but um given all of the you know frankly kind of depressing lack of movement around this even under the dire circumstances and everything that you have laid out i'm just i have to ask you uh is there anything that you are hopeful about anything any any kind of uh silver lining or or reason to to think that things might get better um uh before we sign off i think maybe anybody would be would love to hear something like that but of course i'm not sure if there is an answer for that well the the answer i would give is is that there are many many many more people here on the outside uh engaged with what is going on um calls that i used to be on that had maybe eight people yesterday i was on one i think it was yesterday uh had 40 people um i was on a call the night before last from people out here in western mass uh they were all except for me and one other woman all young people uh most of whom hadn't been doing anything at all interested but not really everybody was signing up to do things for that we feel need to be done out here in in western mass um and i i think that there are so many there are many many many people that are alerted and are finding ways to be engaged because there are these very concrete things to do um that uh are joining this fight and it is a fight to fight and really it's a fight for people we care about people you know who we love their lives and i think a lot of people are feeling that and so um hopefully um even after this horrible horrible time it's over some of these same people will remain engaged in the fight because the fight is not going to go away this is this is a product of the fight that we've been having all along well and engaged in that fight you have been for a good long while and i'm sure for a good while to come um we wish you really the very best of luck in your efforts and those of those you you work with thank you um and we appreciate very much you're taking the time to talk with us today um we understand a little bit more and um and hopefully those in our audience who have been listening will be compelled to take action themselves um so um with that uh we'll wrap up the conversation i've been talking to lois erins from the real cost of prisons project um and thanks very much again for your time thank you audience for listening i'm james melanne this is justice in the balance we'll see you next time thank you