ICE had 6 fucking vehicles at my local courthouse in Massachusetts this morning. They're here and they're terrorizing people. Just because the tactics have changed doesn't mean their impact on our communities has changed. The Massachusetts Senate needs to pass the PROTECT Act ASAP.

I wrote about a landmark Pennsylvania Sup Ct ruling barring mandatory life in prison w/o parole for felony murder convictions. The court broke w/ state precedent to embrace an independent interpretation of the state constitution, rooted in PA’s Quaker history. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

MA SJC holds today that police waiting 24 hours to make a civil traffic stop for an observed violation was unreasonable, violating art. 14 of the MA Declaration of Rights/4th Amendment. Pretextual nature of the stop not invalidated, though. #mapoli @statecourtreport.org www.mass.gov/doc/commonwe...

A man who was deported after being released from a Massachusetts state prison wonders how the state can justify working in partnership with ICE. “The governor has the power to hold back. But they played a role to allow this to happen to me.”

Gang databases "represent yet another black box of U.S. policing—a system in which an individual can be labeled, tracked, surveilled, and harassed based on innocuous criteria." Sharon Brett on how police manufacture criminality—with life-altering consequences

Included on this list is Lt. Andres Lopez, who is a Lieutenant on SERT and has been accused of excessive force on multiple occasions, including in the assault that led to Shacoby Kenny's death in December. #bospoli #mapoli Still no accountability or transparency about an independent investigation!

Mercy delayed, mercy denied: How Mass. medical parole leaves many to die in prison

The warehouse model of prison isn’t working, education is chicagoreader.com/city-life/in...

AP publishes a good multi-state rundown on pushback all over the country against plans for huge Trump prison camps: apnews.com/article/immi...

The Waiting Game: Thousands Of Mass Prisoners Are Stuck On Education Waitlists With waitlists nearly triple the size of enrollment, prisoner rights advocates say the DOC prioritizes punishment over preparation binj.news/2026/04/08... #LocalNewsDay GiveToBINJ.org

2,353 people in Massachusetts prisons are waiting for educational programming. Only 897 are enrolled. The peer-led programs that actually work are not being allowed to expand. We are pushing to change that. Full story: binj.news/2026/04/08/t...

Among Healey's 32 District Court nominees, "18 (56 percent) come from law enforcement backgrounds, almost all former assistant district attorneys. Just three (9 percent) come from legal services backgrounds, meaning institutional public defenders or legal aid attorneys. That is a ratio of 6 to 1."

The opinion piece builds on NEW research done by the QSIDE Institute and Scrutinize which found NYC judges with law enforcement backgrounds (former prosecutors, police officers) set cash bail 32% higher on average (~$9,200) and detain defendants more frequently than judges without those backgrounds

“…judges with law enforcement backgrounds — former prosecutors and police officers — are 3.9 percentage points more likely to order pretrial detention and impose cash bail than judges without such backgrounds. When they do set bail, the amounts are roughly 32 percent higher.”

Despite some modest gains, Blacks and Latinos in Massachusetts are trailing whites in homeownership, business ownership, and wealth accumulation, state officials said during a State House hearing held last week, via @yawumiller.bsky.social www.dotnews.com/2026/04/08/s...

NEW: After winning a public records lawsuit, I offered to waive more than $12,000 in legal fees if Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan’s office would adopt a policy of posting police misconduct records on its website. Sullivan’s office rejected the offer. #Massachusetts #mapoli

🚨NEW REPORT: Most people think of probation and parole as pathways away from the carceral system — but that couldn't be further from the truth. New data reveal how community supervision has grown in parallel with mass incarceration and widened the net of social control 🧵

Judge blocks half-assed regime plan to force colleges to hand over six years of enrollment data in its zeal to find discrimination against white people www.universalhub.com/2026/judge-b... #Massachusetts #lawsuits

Included on this list is Lt. Andres Lopez, who is a Lieutenant on SERT and has been accused of excessive force on multiple occasions, including in the assault that led to Shacoby Kenny's death in December. #bospoli #mapoli Still no accountability or transparency about an independent investigation!

More than 40 years after his wrongful arrest & after spending 34 years in prison for a Boston murder he did not commit, THOMAS ROSA is FINALLY EXONERATED. We are overjoyed that this nightmare is over. Mr. Rosa will be the 100th person officially exonerated in Massachusetts since 1989.

Prosecutors regularly cling to unreliable evidence & disproven junk science to send innocent people back to prison. Under DA Hayden, @scdaonews.bsky.social tried with Raymond Gaines & is trying again with Stephen Pina. Hayden lied on TV that he'd follow what the judge decided, then appealed. #mapoli

Changing theories after you get caught using folklore to convict a guy should be against the rules. You said it happened one way, so sure of it you caged a man for decades, it didn't. You lose. Go home and have a cry about it, don't keep using the system to help you sleep at night.

NEW: James Carver spent 36 years in prison after he was convicted of setting one of the deadliest fires in #Massachusetts history—but after reviewing new scientific evidence, a judge set him free. However, Essex County prosecutors are appealing in an attempt to put Carver back in prison.

Last night the CO working the visiting room at South Bay jail in Boston was Thierno Diallo, one of the COs involved in the assault & death of Shacoby Kenny. The officers are still at work & coming in contact with witnesses. There has been NO transparency or accountability. #mapoli #bospoli

Then, in 2020, as the nation erupted in outrage over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, the Mass Legislature passed criminal justice reforms that included outlawing police shooting unarmed fleeing suspects.

Hers was the 7th police shooting in a 2 year period. She was the 34th unarmed motorist (rear seat passenger, actually) killed since 1990. A day after the Barros-Cepeda shooting, Commissioner Paul Evans issued a guideline barring police from shooting at fleeing suspects.

A Boston Cop has been indicted for manslaughter for the first time in more than 30 years. How did we get here? The '02 police shooting of Eveline Barros-Cepeda was a pivotal moment.

“A State Police sergeant [Scott Quigley] was indicted on a motor vehicle homicide charge Thursday after prosecutors say he was driving drunk when he caused a 2023 crash that killed a man in Woburn.” #Massachusetts

"Among the initial cuts are partnerships in which his deputies [help] the Springfield, Palmer, Chicopee, West Springfield & Holyoke police...[including with] patrol shifts, serving restraining orders, helping to operate a real-time surveillance center..." #mapoli www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/25/m...

This story is deeply reported and urgent. The crisis of despair, of lack of mental healthcare and of responding to mental health crisis with social isolation and torture, of increasing use of K2 to self-medicate, and of lack of program access across the system demands redress. #mapoli

After an anonymous Facebook user made fun of a Fall River cop who is the chief's son, the department obtained a search warrant to identify the user. He turned out to be a former Fall River cop who now works for Swansea PD. FRPD then contacted Swansea PD to get him in trouble.

A new investigation by MassLive and The Springfield Republican found that more than 140 people died in Massachusetts prisons and jails between 2022 and 2025, and getting basic data about how they died has been a fight every step of the way: www.masslive.com/news/2026/03...

Data on causes of death in Massachusetts prisons and jails is hard to get

Prosecutors drop case against Mass. man who had murder conviction overturned by DNA evidence

A federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed against Worcester, accusing the city of endangering people in mental health crisis by sending armed police to 911 calls instead of trained clinicians — a practice advocates say violates disability law… #mapoli

More than 100 people stood in frigid weather at Boston’s City Hall Plaza yesterday to mourn the death of Emmanuel Damas, a Haitian man living in Dorchester who died in ICE custody this month. His family is demanding a probe into what led to his detention and death. www.dotnews.com/2026/03/19/a...

"Bailey-Sweeting’s death is also a window into how hard it is for families to obtain information about an incarcerated loved one when they die. ... She has faced significant hurdles in her search for answers, including unresponsive officials [and] the absence of legal representation ... ." #mapoli

Inside an alarming year for Mass. prisons: Spate of suicides forces reckoning

New investigative reporting sheds light on the suicide crisis in MA prisons, where deaths are mounting in units that function as solitary confinement, a K2 crisis is spreading, and the DOC is punishing people for use rather than treating them. Essential reading: www.masslive.com/news/2026/03...

Did the Mass. prison system fail Zahkuan Bailey-Sweeting? His mom believes so

After 34 years in prison, Thomas Rosa speaks out after learning he won’t be retried in murder case | Click on the image to read the full story

“O’Malley allegedly told investigators … that King ‘tried to run us over,’ according to court documents, though authorities say that body-worn camera footage revealed neither officer was in danger of being struck.”

“A #Boston police officer has been charged with manslaughter as authorities say he shot and killed a suspected carjacker in Roxbury last week after allegedly telling the man, ‘Bro, I’m gonna f***ing shoot you.’” #Massachusetts

Tommy Rosa is finally exonerated. Long overdue, but it’s never too late to celebrate freedom or justice. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/18/m...

Worcester sued over 911 response with police to mental health crises

LUCE is organizing a Week of Action: ICE Out of MA Courts! from March 16-21. Get involved! www.lucemass.org/courts #MApoli should do everything in its power to stop our courts from being used as staging grounds for targeting, hunting & kidnapping community members by federal immigration officers.

Get mad! And then get organized: bsky.app/profile/cour...

One Lynn father went to court over a broken taillight, and ended up deported to Guatemala. www.wgbh.org/news/local/2... @gbhnews.bsky.social

I often hear people say they don't see ICE in their communities, but that's because over the last few months ICE has focused on kidnapping people from courts where they are able to operate with virtual impunity. It's an absolute disgrace that our state allows this.

People are showing up to court in Massachusetts for minor issues and being kidnapped by ICE. I hope the legislature moves quickly on several pending pieces of legislation that will limit ICE's ability to operate in courthouses, including expanding virtual hearing access.