Lawsuit filed over prison moves
ACLU takes aim at shared cells in Shirley complex
The Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit yesterday over a decision to move 450 prisoners into a maximum-security facility in Shirley, forcing some inmates to share a cell and, according to the ACLU, increasing the risk of violence.
The lawsuit - filed on behalf of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, a nonprofit prisoner-defense group - seeks to publicize records showing how the state Department of Correction decides which inmates to house together - a system sometimes called double-bunking - and with whom.
"Double-bunking at a maximum security prison is an extremely complicated and potentially dangerous situation that affects everyone," said MCLS executive director Leslie Walker, in a statement released by the ACLU. "Not being forthcoming about the process is only adding to the fears and tension."
Diane Wiffin, a Department of Correction spokeswoman, declined to comment on the ongoing litigation last night, but said there has been no increase in calls for ambulance service for injured prisoners at the facility since the transfers began.
The suit seeks paperwork defining the classification system, which the correction department in the past said uses an "evidence-based tool" to decide pairings.
Most of the inmates being transferred are from MCI-Cedar Junction. The process is expected to be completed in about a month, Wiffin said. Cedar Junction is also a maximum-security facility, she said.
In its suit, the ACLU alleges that the influx of prisoners at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center has sparked tension, fear, and violence among inmates who are doubled up in cells previously housing one person. Some inmates fear placement with an enemy or a hostile prisoner.
"Prisoners report that some pairing decisions appear to be arbitrary and have in some instances resulted in violence, with a few prisoners seriously injured," according to the ACLU.
Also under scrutiny is whether medium-security inmates at Souza-Baranowski awaiting a medium-security bed elsewhere are being paired with maximum-security cellmates.
The plan to house some prisoners in pairs comes as the correctional facility faces its highest inmate count in 20 years. Wiffin said last year that Souza-Baranowski would be the only facility to implement double-bunking.
The Globe reported in November that projections for the 2009 prison population put the number of total inmates between 11,949 and 12,176, over 40 percent above capacity.
Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in Tuesday's Metro section on a lawsuit being filed over a decision to move 450 prisoners into a maximum-security facility in Shirley incorrectly reported that Diane Wiffin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Correction, said there had been no increase in calls for ambulance service for injured prisoners at the Souza-Baranowski since the transfers began. Wiffin had said that there were no reports of increased violence at the facility.
