Jo has lived and worked in western Massachusetts since the late 1990s, arriving fresh out of New York City’s Hunter College School of Social Work where she focused on homelessness policy, prison reform, and earned an MSW.
We should be reducing jail and prison populations by building community-based correctional programs and other alternatives to incarceration. We should not spend taxpayer money to build new prisons or expand existing ones to incarcerate more people. My bill (S.2030, An Act establishing a jail and prison construction moratorium) imposes a 5-year moratorium on the construction or expansion of jails, prisons, and other correctional facilities, which would put the brakes on plans to build a $50 million prison for women inmates in Norfolk. Those funds could be invested in education, human services and other resources which would have a more positive effect on protecting public safety.