Probe of corrections finding big gaps, lack of understanding of inmate services amid rising budgets
When a panel of lawmakers, experts and corrections officials combed through data from county sheriffs in Massachusetts, they found rates of mental health issues among inmates ranging from 14 percent all the way up to 90 percent.
And in the eyes of commission co-chair Sen. William Brownsberger, that 76 percentage point gap must be incorrect — a microcosm of a larger problem the panel is poised to flag in a report to the Legislature.
"You're telling me it's that much worse in some counties than others? No way," Brownsberger, a Belmont Democrat, said Thursday, Jan. 13, at a meeting of the Special Commission on Correctional Funding.
Without a uniform set of reporting standards, commissioners said, lawmakers face a tall task in determining how much money the state's prisons and jails need to provide necessary services and programs.
For years, the state's incarcerated population has been in decline. From 2012 to 2021, the count of inmates under Department of Correction jurisdiction dropped 42 percent to 6,848 from 11,723. Correctional spending in Massachusetts has increased over that span, though, as several speakers noted at a previous meeting of the special commission.
Rep. Michael Day, a Stoneham Democrat who co-chairs the panel with Brownsberger, said at Thursday's hearing that the state is "now providing a lot more services" for its smaller population of inmates, driving up costs.
"What we need to understand in the commonwealth and certainly in the Legislature is: what are those services, what value are they delivering, where are the gaps in the different facilities, some of which are necessitated by the facilities themselves and others are determined on a policy level, and how do we as a commission and a Legislature figure out what should be funded and what shouldn't be funded?" Day said.
"We don't have uniform reporting standards, uniform definitions of what constitutes mental illness, what constitutes programs, what constitutes health services," he added.
Several commissioners agreed that the state needs to take additional steps to standardize correctional facility reporting as a component of budgetary reforms. "Across the board, we could do better on that front," said MassINC Research Director Ben Forman.
Brownsberger suggested that the most viable option may be to stand up a new state agency or impose requirements on an existing office to assess inmate needs and ensure sheriffs and the DOC are funded accordingly.
Information the special commission has compiled to date about programming in correctional facilities, he said, "is all over the map."
"There is no way, from all the data we've assembled, for this commission to have an opinion at all whether inmates are getting the programming they need in any facility," Brownsberger said, calling for an "empowered agency" to address the needs. "Let's make sure we have an agency that's going to identify those needs for each inmate and then have some kind of process for assessing whether those needs are being met."
Rep. Timothy Whelan, a Brewster Republican who is running for Barnstable County sheriff, said law enforcement officials are "willing to take on that task" so long as state government provides sufficient resources.
"What you're describing, I think, sounds excellent as an idea and a general principle," Whelan, himself a former correction officer and former State Police trooper, said. "But it's going to cost money, and I just want to make sure that as we approach this, we're not going to start walking down the road of unfunded mandates on the Department of Correction or our sheriffs."
"I would fully agree with that. We're not going to pass this legislation without 10 million bucks behind it," Brownsberger replied.
The push for more standardized data reporting and centralized budget oversight will feature as one of the panel's main recommendations, and others continue to take shape.
Former Hampden County Sheriff Michael Ashe pitched fellow commissioners on a seven-point outline to define correctional funding allocation in Massachusetts. Those include providing engagement rather than "warehousing" during incarceration; ensuring security staff are appropriately sized for inmate populations; offering evidence-based programs to address root causes of criminal behavior; and beginning inmate release and reentry planning on day one.
At one point, Ashe suggested the Legislature convene a second commission that will continue to explore the complex web of correctional budgeting.
"My fear is that this is going to be the end, and boy, we don't want to be here 10 years from now looking back and saying what a mistake we made not building on the great work that's being done," Ashe said.
Lawmakers originally created the commission in the fiscal 2020 state budget and gave it a deadline of Sept. 1, 2020, to submit a report and recommendations concerning "the appropriate level of funding for the department of correction and each sheriff's department." After two extensions, the panel now faces a Jan. 31, 2022, deadline.
Brownsberger said chairs intend to complete a draft report "over the next eight or nine days" and circulate it to commissioners. The panel will then meet again Jan. 24 to discuss the draft.
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