In the legislative session that ended July 31, no significant legislation passed reforming our ineffective, costly and harmful prisons and jails and criminal legal system. In the past 18 months, I have spent thousands of hours working to pass bills that have died.
One bill would have ended our unfair money bail system which keeps poor people locked up while people with money bail themselves out. Another would have finally outlawed the videotaping of strip searches of women by guards at the Chicopee jail.
I vote in Northampton. Still, I am working to elect Vira Douangmany Cage who is running in the 3rd Hampshire District, which includes Amherst, Pelham and part of Granby. I am encouraging my fellow organizers and activists who are committed to creating more justice in the “criminal justice” system to support Vira’s election no matter where in Massachusetts they live. In my experience, there are few legislators in the Senate or House who grasp the issues of mass incarceration and mass criminalization.
What makes Vira’s candidacy so important is her extensive experience about how the criminal legal system really works and how it can be fixed. This is what she will bring to the legislature.
Lois Ahrens
Northampton