No New Women’s Prison! Moratorium Committee Hearing

Join Families for Justice as Healing and The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls at the MA State House on Tuesday May 13 at 1pm in A2 as the Prison Moratorium bill will be heard before committee. FJAH and The National Council are encouraging as many people as possible to come whether or not you choose to testify.  If you’d like to testify, you can do so in person or virtually. This is the ONLY hearing the bill will receive this legislative session, so we need to pack the hearing room!

Sign up to testify!

Everyone is also welcome to submit written testimony. Here is the toolkit for all information regarding submitting testimony, including templates: tinyurl.com/moratoriumtoolkit

Want support preparing your testimony for the hearing? Join a prep party Monday 5/12 at 6pm on Zoom!

This bill would pause the process of designing and building a $50 million women’s prison among other massive construction projects so our state will have to shift its focus on further reducing the number of people in jail and prison and implement alternatives before building anything new. Our communities need and deserve public dollars for housing, healthcare, and treatment – not jail and prison construction! Visit the Free Her Campaign for more information on the bill.

IN-PERSON/VIRTUAL TESTIMONY REGISTRATION: Legislators, public officials, and the public must register to provide oral testimony. To register to testify virtually or in-person, please provide the contact information requested in this form by 4:00 PM on Friday, May 9. Once registered, you will receive further instruction on how to participate virtually.

WRITTEN TESTIMONY: Written testimony can be submitted via email to Svetlana Yefimenko at svetlana.yefimenko@mahouse.gov or Riley Nichols at riley.nichols@masenate.gov.