Word: reform
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...major opposition to prison reform comes from the people who run the prisons, the prison industry. The real reason for their opposition is economic. They stand to gain from the continued operation of prisons through jobs and contracts...
...citizens groups, ex-offender groups and church groups joined together to form the Ad Hoc Committee on Prison Reform, a group that put pressure on Governor Francis W. Sargent, with mailing and campaigning, to reform prisons. In February 1972, Sargent appointed a new commissioner of corrections, John Boone, and introduced a new prison reform bill, Chapter 777. The bill, which the legislature passed in June 1972, gave Boone the power to make changes such as work releases, furloughs, and education releases--all reforms which increase the prisoners' interaction with the community...
This riot established the battle-lines of the future struggle. By September 1972, the prisoners inside Walpole had formed a local chapter of the National Prisoners' Reform Association. The guards' union began a campaign to discredit Boone...
...prison guards were opposed to Boone because they realized that his reforms led to a reduction of prisons and therefore a cutback of jobs, through transferring prisoners away from prisons to community-based corrections. Boone also recognized the prisoners' union (the NPRA), opened the prisons to the media, and was in favor of maintaining some discipline over guards' treatment of prisoners. The strategy of the guards was to picture themselves as the defenders of civil service and trade unions in the state. If their jobs were threatened, all state employees would be vulnerable to reform cutbacks...
Conservative members of the Democratic legislature (Sargent is Republican) began to voice opposition to the reform program, though many of them had voted for Chapter 777 before it became an issue. The most vocal was State Senator Francis X. McCann, whose district includes West Cambridge...