Advocates, governor clash over proposed $360 million overhaul for Framingham women's prison

Boston Globe

01-07-2025

'This is more than an investment in a 150-year-old building,' Healey said. 'It represents an investment in people, a commitment to second chances, and a responsibility to build a safer future for communities statewide.'
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Anti-incarceration advocates, who have long opposed the building of a new women's prison in Massachusetts, said the state should instead focus on releasing and funding services for more women,
'We could be investing in those alternatives instead of a massive, massive construction project,' said Mallory Hanora, director of the Roxbury-based advocacy organization Families for Justice as Healing.
Healey's plan would reduce MCI-Framingham's footprint from 260,000 to 200,000 square feet decrease bed capacity, though the governor's office did not specify the exact number of planned beds. Inmates would be housed in 'community-oriented living units' in a 'campus-like setting,' and the facility would feature improved facilities for medical care, mental health treatment, and rehabilitative programming, according to the governor's office.
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'This investment reflects our overarching goal of strategically aligning our infrastructure with our rehabilitative mission,' Public Safety and Security Secretary Terrence Reidy said in a statement.
In 2022, a
That same year, both chambers of the state legislature passed a bill that would have placed a five-year moratorium on new prison construction, though it was vetoed by Baker. The latest version of the bill, which was the subject of a hearing in May, includes a carve-out for renovations that would improve living conditions, as long as they did not expand bed capacity.
Sen. Jo Comerford, a Florence Democrat and one of the moratorium's sponsors, said Healey's plan has its priorities wrong — particularly at a time when President Trump's latest spending bill
'My initial reaction was one of disappointment and concern,' Comerford said in an interview. '$360 million is an enormous sum of money.'
The state should focus on funding alternatives to incarceration, community-based services, anti-poverty initiatives and addiction treatment programs, Comerford said, which she described as ways of addressing the 'root causes of incarceration.' Comerford said that incarcerated women who
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'I don't think there's any disputing the fact that MCI-Framingham is an old building and in need of repair, but when you ask formerly and currently incarcerated people for their opinion, what we hear is invest in alternatives to incarceration, invest in the root causes of incarceration,' Comerford said.
The renovation would also, for the first time, allow for a 'temperature-controlled environment' — long a concern for inmates who have complained of inescapable and sometimes dangerous heat levels.
Lee Unitt, who served time at MCI-Framingham from 2013 to 2019, alleged in a 2017 federal lawsuit that oppressive heat, combined with the prison's denial of her request for a large fan, contributed to her suffering from mini-strokes while incarcerated. She sued again the next year, alleging that the presence of carcinogenic chemicals in paint and mattresses had harmed her health.
In an interview, Unitt said she hopes Healey's renovation would fully address those health concerns, for the sake of other inmates and staff at the facility.
'What she is proposing sounds great on paper,' Unitt said.
A federal judge dismissed both of Unitt's suits in 2021, finding that though there may have been high heat and toxins in her cell, Unitt had not provided sufficient expert evidence to back up her claims of medical harm. Her appeal in the PCB lawsuit is still pending.
Angelia Jefferson, a former MCI-Framingham inmate who now works for Families for Justice as Healing, said she often saw mold in the prison's showers, and that heat was a perpetual problem, both during the summer and when the facility's heating system was turned on full-blast during the winter.
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'If you have any type of respiratory issue, it's hard for you to breathe in those little cells,' Jefferson said.
And some advocates argued no amount of capital funding can address the traumatic and sometimes abusive conditions of incarceration in Massachusetts.
'It's kind of a perversion of the language that they use around reimagining rehabilitation,' said Connie Tran, an attorney who represents two former inmates currently suing an MCI-Framingham guard for alleged sexual assault. 'This is money to rebuild a prison, essentially. There's nothing that's going to be reimagined here, except maybe they will update their air conditioning.'
Jefferson said that if it was up to her, the prison would be closed for good.
'I think it's a shame they're taking that much money to put into that prison,' Jefferson said. 'They should be taking that money to put into our communities.'
At its peak in 2007, MCI-Framingham held 844 women. The facility currently holds 218 people, out of a an operational capacity of 598, according to the governor's office. More than 72 percent of that population has been diagnosed with serious mental illness, according to that data.
Jefferson, who spent 31 years in MCI-Framingham for killing her ex-boyfriend, said she wants other women like her experience freedom and contribute to society.
'What I did was wrong. But at the same time I am giving back to my community,' she said. 'The women behind the wall? Give them the same chance they gave me.'
Dan Glaun can be reached at