Middlesex Jail prisoners reached a breaking point
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RE “PRISONERS force evacuation of jail: Vandalism was cause of flooding, sheriff reports’’ (Metro, July 6): The conditions under which we hold prisoners awaiting trial at Cambridge’s Middlesex Jail - prisoners who supposedly are presumed innocent until proven guilty - are scandalous. Instead of the legally guaranteed speedy trial, those awaiting trial can be held for months under confinement more severe than even the miserable conditions in our state prisons. Now we find out in the Globe that the jail held two and a half times more prisoners than the facility was intended to.
We blame the prisoners for the destruction of property that took place after nine detainees damaged a fire-suppression system. And in America we tend to hate anyone arrested for crimes, whether they are guilty or not. But at some point any of us would snap under such conditions and insist that we must be treated as human beings.
Paul Shannon
Somerville 
