By Luis Fieldman
masslive.com
BOSTON — An agreement by state officials to pay a $6.75 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by nearly 160 incarcerated people at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley received a judge’s approval last Friday. The plaintiffs claimed they were victims of a “weeks-long campaign of violence” by corrections officers.
Lawyers representing incarcerated individuals called the settlement a landmark civil rights case on Tuesday and said the prison has been “plagued with violence since it opened in 1998.” State officials originally announced they reached a settlement agreement in May.
The lawsuit, Diggs v. Mici, was filed in January 2022, and nearly 160 incarcerated people claimed they were subjected to excessive force by corrections officers between Jan. 10 to Feb. 6, 2020. The lawsuit named the staff at the prison and Carol Mici, the former commissioner of the DOC, who retired in 2024.
After an incident where several corrections officers were assaulted by a small number of incarcerated people, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said it led to what they claimed was a “brutal and calculated collective revenge” by corrections officers against several individuals not involved in the original incident.
“This brutality included beating and kicking incarcerated people; gouging eyes; grabbing testicles; smashing faces into the ground or wall; deploying Taser guns, pepper ball guns, and other chemical agents; ordering [canines] to menace and bite incarcerated people; and forcing people to kneel in stress positions with hands and ankles shackled, in some cases for several hours,” a press release from Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts and law firm Hogan Lovells states, the lawyers who represented the incarcerated people.
In May, the Department of Correction issued a statement when the settlement agreement was announced and addressed the incident cited in the lawsuit.
On Jan. 10, 2020, several incarcerated individuals “perpetrated a violent assault on correction officers, resulting in serious injuries to four officers,” the DOC said. In response, the facility was placed in secure status through Feb. 6, 2020, during which tactical responses were carried out in an effort to restore order at the facility, officials said.
“This settlement represents a final step in a series of actions the Department of Correction has taken in response to the incident, including a thorough review of existing policies and the implementation of key reforms,” said DOC Commissioner Shawn Jenkins. “The DOC did not wait for settlement discussions to act. We proactively amended use of force regulations, updated policies on K-9 deployment and disciplinary investigations, and implemented a Body-Worn Camera policy to enhance transparency, accountability, and training across all DOC facilities.”
Reforms from the lawsuit
The department said it embarked on a review of existing policies, consulted with national experts and researched best practices, and drew from reforms and improvements made in the law enforcement field. It led to the first changes to Use of Force Regulations since 2009.
The lawsuit also brought claims of unconstitutional treatment of Black and Latino individuals who were “targeted for particularly harsh treatment because of their race, including excessive force, yanking or cutting dreadlocks from people’s heads, racial slurs, and other discriminatory actions,” the lawyers said.
Each plaintiff is set to receive an average of $40,000, lawyers said.
The settlement also establishes reforms intended to address the underlying conditions at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center.
Some reforms announced by lawyers include:
- Removal of corrections officers who were found to have used excessive force and prohibit their reapplication for three years. The state’s Department of Correction will also require review of any civil verdict or finding against DOC staff to determine whether internal action is needed. Special Operations officers must wear name tags, and an anonymous staff misconduct hotline will be established for DOC employees.
- Prohibit the use of patrol canines except to control a major disaster, and in that case, canines will need to be muzzled. Kneeling as a “stress position” is prohibited. Video teams will need to be activated whenever special operations units are deployed.
- There will be diversity and implicit bias training in the training academy and required annual staff training. More training on disorder management, forced moves and tactical responses will be required.
- Incarcerated people will self-report their racial identities during booking in an attempt to curb misidentification of racial identities.
“DOC has consistently misidentified people of color as white, which not only denies individuals their right to self-identify, but also skews demographic data related to use of force and other incidents involving people of color,” the lawyers said.
The lawsuit reforms include the explicit prohibition and disciplining use of racial slurs by DOC employees.
“This settlement aims to bring justice to the many incarcerated people injured by extreme and unlawful use of force by officers,” said David Milton, a lawyer who represented the incarcerated people. “This settlement is about holding DOC accountable for the harm it causes by perpetuating a culture of violence at SBCC and allowing officers to harm incarcerated people with impunity.”
“SBCC has been plagued with violence since it opened in 1998,” added Milton. “The events of 2020 were not isolated incidents but part of a pattern in which decisions made in the running of the prison have too often given officers the green light to commit violence against incarcerated people.”
Recent deaths
At least four incarcerated people have died in Massachusetts prisons in the past month.
An incarcerated person died on Oct. 3 at Souza Baranowski Correctional Center after a “medical emergency,” according to the state’s Department of Correction. The man died despite prison staff attempting life-saving measures, officials said.
His death is believed to have been health-related, the DOC said, but remains under investigation by Massachusetts State Police Detectives with the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office, in coordination with the DOC.
Three other inmates at another prison facility, the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk, have also died within the past month.
These include deaths on Sept. 20, Sept. 27 and Oct. 20 — none of which are believed to have involved foul play and were also medical emergencies, the DOC said. However, the cause and manner of each person’s death remains under investigation.
“Our staff responded immediately in each instance and worked alongside emergency responders to provide life-saving measures,” a DOC spokesperson said of those incidents.
“The DOC remains deeply committed to ensuring incarcerated individuals have access to comprehensive mental health and substance use services.”
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