Raymond Gaines, Who Served Nearly 50 Years for Murder He Says He Didn’t Commit, Gets GPS Removed A man who spent nearly 50 years in prison for a murder he says he didn’t commit is one step closer to clearing his name. Raymond Gaines was in Suffolk Superior court Friday, still fighting his 1976 conviction...

New Commonwealth Fund Awards $3 million in Grants to Mass. Nonprofits Addressing Racial Inequity The New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund (NCF) announced Tuesday that it is awarding $3 million in grants to more than 100 nonprofits “working to advance racial equity” in Massachusetts. The organizations receiving this year’s awards are part of...

Massachusetts Budget Vetoes Ripple Through Service Sectors Reentry services, job training programs and rest homes could soon feel the impact of Gov. Maura Healey’s budget vetoes that were left intact after a chaotic end to formal lawmaking. The House overturned some of Healey’s fiscal 2025 budget vetoes during last week’s formal sessions, but the Senate...

New Ballot Boxes Arrive to Boston Jails this Fall New ballot boxes will be available in Suffolk County jails this fall to kick off an expansion of voting opportunities for thousands of incarcerated people across the state beginning with primaries in September. Under Massachusetts law, people who are convicted of felonies cannot vote while they...

Life After Prison: “Don’t Judge Me” GBH News Documentary Onyx White, an aspiring rapper, is attempting to launch a music career and build his life in Boston. And he is simultaneously attempting something that may prove even more difficult: avoiding the parole violations that land many returning citizens back in jail. Onyx White, an aspiring rapper...

Health Care Gaps Create Reentry Hurdle for Incarcerated Individuals Leslie Credle, CEO of Justice 4 Housing, emphasized the importance of providing proper health care to those who are incarcerated, noting that inadequate care leads to life-threatening illnesses. Mental health impacts and poor housing options exacerbate the situation. “You cannot heal until you have a home,”...

You Can Never Get That Time Back: Solitary Confinement is Devastating for Incarcerated Mothers and their Children Leslie Credle couldn’t stomach the thought of her children seeing her that way: handcuffed, divided from them by an imposing Plexiglass shield, unable to reach out and touch their hands. For the eight months she spent in the...

During Second Chance Month, AG Campbell and Boston Medical Center Co-Host Reentry Roundtable BOSTON — Today, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, in partnership with Boston Medical Center, hosted the AGO’s first ever roundtable discussion focused on barriers to housing, employment, education and other opportunities for justice-impacted and formerly incarcerated individuals.  The roundtable was held in April...

Returning Citizens Find Success in Boston Reentry Program Arminta Graham, one of the graduates, said she had a hard time getting housing due to her criminal record. She never imagined she would be homeless, but that’s how she found herself. “I was completely disappointed, stressed out, going crazy,” she said. So she said she’s very...

Religious Leaders, Community Activists Call for Increased Funding to Maintain Affordable Housing Stock The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization is calling on the Massachusetts Legislature to pass a handful of measures that would expand funding for affordable housing, earmark more than $1 billion for the maintenance of existing units, and make pursuing a home easier for...

Major Barriers Persist for Former Prisoners Who Need IDs Supreme Hassan says he was released from prison in August without a state-issued ID — a document considered crucial to succeeding outside of prison walls. The 51-year-old, whose birth name is Jeffrey Hilton, left prison after 33 years excited to start his new life. He moved...

Housing Fixes, ID Cards Top of To-Do List for GBIO Forum in Ashmont Last Thursday at First Baptist Church on Ashmont Street in Dorchester, the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) began its campaign for “housing justice” with call and response, testimonies, and a scorecard for state legislators. To explain why new spending was needed to...

Boston Receives Largest Ever Grant to Address Homelessness (The Center Square) – Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced yesterday that the city had received a $47 million grant, its largest ever, for non-profit organizations helping homeless people. The grant was awarded under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care Program, which funds...

Life After Prison: Long Journey Home GBH hosts a panel with local experts about challenges and success for the recently released from incarceration, part of its ongoing series Life After Prison. Each year thousands of people return from the state’s prisons and county jails facing challenges in finding work, housing and, in general re-integrating into...

Women coming home from prison get little help rebuilding Leslie Credle, executive director of Justice 4 Housing, says the group has helped 29 women and 45 men so far. But she says there’s far fewer programs in the state to help women, especially to find housing that can unite them with their children. “Women tend...

Panel discusses barriers to housing for formerly incarcerated people Advocacy is important, Credle said, but changing the law is the only way to “get to the core issues,” otherwise “nothing is going to change.” Justice 4 Housing not only provides home re-integration services and manages housing applications for formerly incarcerated citizens, but also works to enact...

Patchwork of government services leaves former prisoners in the hands of strained nonprofits Housing: The first and highest hurdle Housing remains a huge barrier to successful reentry, according to dozens of interviews for this series over the past year. And without stable housing, “you can’t get a job. You can’t focus on mental health, you...

Boston invests $1 million to help people returning from prisons and jails Boston will distribute $1 million in grants to organizations that provide services for people leaving prisons and jails, part of an effort to help formerly incarcerated people live stable lives, Mayor Michelle Wu announced Tuesday morning. The money will be split among 35...

‘To Heal as a Society, We Have to Help with Housing’ Emily Rooney Clark ’24 helps clients navigate housing barriers through summer internship Emily Rooney ’24 spent the summer entrenched in the Massachusetts housing system — juggling phone calls, tracking down applications, and advocating for clients while trying to understand their unique needs and circumstances...

Pressley, Tlaib Unveil Bill To Increase Housing Access For People With Criminal Records WASHINGTON – Today, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) unveiled the Housing for Formerly Incarcerated Reentry and Stable Tenancy (Housing FIRST) Act, bold legislation to help people who are formerly incarcerated and those with criminal histories access safe and...

Supporters Look to Gain Support in Sealing Certain Criminal Records By Ellen Fleming BOSTON (WWLP) – A legislative briefing Wednesday at the State House brought out support in hopes of sealing certain criminal records. Advocates of second chance, clean slate bills spoke on the difficulties of living a free life post incarceration due to CORI...

Leslie Credle Joins Haymarket Funding Panel Leslie Credle, the Founder and Executive Director of Justice 4 Housing, has joined the Haymarket People’s Fund as part of their funding panel. Credle founded Justice 4 Housing to end homelessness and housing insecurity for individuals impacted by incarceration and domestic violence. She brings to the table her lived...

The Supreme Judicial Court returned to the issue earlier this month in a case involving a Dorchester District Court judge’s denial of an expungement request by a defendant for two sets of records involving possession of small quantities of marijuana dating back more than 15 years...

Elugardo answered questions from Jamaica Plain News about her candidacy, bills she's sponsored to help incarcerated individuals, redistricting, and more...

Three-quarters of a million New Yorkers have convictions in their history. ‘Fair chance’ laws could change their lives...

“These extraordinary innovators should inspire us all to harness our own talents and imagination to support transformational efforts for a more equitable world.”...

On Nov. 5, ACT UP Boston, labor leaders, frontline harm reductionists, housing advocates, contingents of students, folks who have been houseless and people who use drugs converged on City Hall for a protest press conference and speak-out...

300+ people took part in a 90-mile march from Springfield to the Massachusetts State Housein September to demand an end to new prison and jail construction. The march and the organizing behind it marks major growth in the movement for prison abolition in Massachusetts...

As states pass new laws to reform solitary confinement, advocates are pushing for this harmful practice to be fully abolished...

Massachusetts families spend about $25 million each year on phone calls to incarcerated relatives, a nonprofit advocacy group says...

Today, a 90-mile march, the “Long March for No New Prisons and Jails,” ended at the Massachusetts State House with 100 abolitionists and supporters rallying and holding a press conference...

Activists and state representatives spoke to and reviewed acts for changes to public housing policy in the Commonwealth during a virtual public hearing Wednesday afternoon...

State moving forward with plan for new women’s prison despite small population...

Documents show HDR, Inc. has monitored groups that oppose its controversial plans to build jails and highways...

It wasn’t until in-person visits were suspended last year that Jennings realized how much it costs for people in jail to talk to those outside: around $5 for a 15-minute call to some local landlines, $9.99 for a 15-minute call to a cellphone...

Lawmakers and courts have made headway in reforming or ending solitary, but some corrections departments are finding loopholes to perpetuate the practice...

Recounting stories of trauma and suffering behind bars, dozens of formerly incarcerated Bay Staters, families of inmates and advocates urged lawmakers Tuesday to order a temporary halt on construction of new correctional facilities and redirect resources toward community-based alternatives...

COVID-19 postponed trials and closed courthouses across New England, leading to concerns about timely due process as the system reopens...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Friday published a proposal to the Federal Register that would rescind the department’s 2020 disparate impact rule and restore the 2013 discriminatory effects rule...

A five-year study by the Boston Foundation makes the case that housing instability threatens the health of low-income Boston area residents...

A man incarcerated at MCI Norfolk managed to get on the roof of one of the prison buildings Sunday, threatening to jump, according to other prisoners, because he was distraught he wasn't getting medical treatment...

A man incarcerated at MCI Norfolk managed to get on the roof of one of the prison buildings Sunday, threatening to jump, according to other prisoners, because he was distraught he wasn't getting medical treatment...

The effort to bail out Black moms before Mother's Day is more urgent than ever...

Says investing in incarceration is opposite of what Mass. needs...

The U.S. spends $81 billion a year on mass incarceration, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and that figure might be an underestimate...

The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls is calling on President Joe Biden to grant clemency to 100 women in his first 100 days in office...

The communities most affected by incarceration and violence are organizing to elect leaders to shrink the punishment bureaucracy and to invest instead in addressing the root causes of harm by investing in safety and health...

Democratic Reps. Cori Bush, of Missouri, and Ayanna Pressley, of Massachusetts, added their voices to an initiative that calls on President Joe Biden to grant 100 women clemency in his first 100 days...

Advocate Leslie Credle on the prison lockdown after COVID...

For more than a year, the Massachusetts Department of Correction has been trying to build a new women’s prison...

Testimony came from women of all ages representing numerous Metrowest communities and advocacy groups...

As prison outbreaks rise, the state has moved inmates forward in the line to receive inoculations...

A bombshell announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling’s office on Tuesday...

Conditions for prisoners with mental health issues at the Massachusetts Department of Correction violate the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has found...

One of the most well-documented harms of incarceration is the way it tears families apart. More than 2.7 million children in the United States have a currently incarcerated parent, including 11 percent of Black children and 4 percent of Latino children...

Charles Hamilton Houston Institute co-authors amicus briefs in landmark Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cases...

The issue of incarceration and racial justice in prisons has again become part of national debate following months of protests spurred by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody...

The coronavirus has added an element of chaos to every system of our community. For those systems that were complicated, or under-resourced to begin with, the chaos is multiplied...

Our global pandemic forced us to grapple with truths we always knew but too often ignored. One of those truths is the direct relationship between one’s housing and one’s health. They are inextricably linked...

By mid-June, 85 of the 183 women in MCI Framingham—46 percent—had tested positive for the virus, according to Massachusetts Department of Correction (MDOC) data compiled by the ACLU of Massachusetts...

“There’s a feasible, actionable solution: we need them to be released immediately,” the rally organizers wrote in an online bulletin...

As of April 10, Massachusetts has reported the 4th most confirmed cases of COVID-19 of any state in the U.S. As the virus spreads, local organizers are raising concerns about the well-being of the incarcerated population...

As has happened since the start of the pandemic in prisons across the country, a COVID-19 outbreak hit SMCC at the end of January...