By Rick Sobey
Boston Herald
BOSTON — Where’s the transparency?
A fired-up state rep. is asking that question after the Massachusetts Department of Correction refuses to divulge the names of the inmates who received payouts from a $6 million class-action lawsuit, the state’s largest settlement last year.
State Rep. Michael Soter says he’s considering filing a bill to “open the doors to transparency” when it comes to publicly funded settlements after DOC refused to give the prisoners’ names.
The Herald had filed a public records request about the state’s biggest settlement, requesting the names of the 150 inmates who received payouts — and the specific settlement amounts for each inmate.
But DOC is withholding that information from the public, citing the safety of the inmates and their families.
“Transparency continues to be a big problem in this state, from the top down,” Soter, a Bellingham Republican, told the Herald. “Leaders today run away from it, and it’s no different at DOC.
“It seems like we are always moving toward overly protecting the prisoners, instead of protecting the rights of correction officers, who are in harm’s way every single day,” he added.
Soter in the past has called for accountability in DOC — and for steps to be taken to ensure correction officers are safe, secure and protected in their workplace.
The $6.75 million settlement — $5.75 million for 150 prisoners, and the remaining $1 million for attorneys’ costs and fees — was related to a high-profile altercation at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley.
In early 2020, several inmates at the maximum-security prison assaulted correction officers, resulting in serious injuries to four officers. Sixteen prisoners were charged in the attack.
Following the assault, the prison was placed in secure status for nearly a month, as tactical responses were carried out in an effort to restore order to the facility.
Inmates as a result filed a class-action suit, calling it “a brutal and lengthy campaign of excessive force and unconstitutional treatment.”
That class-action lawsuit eventually led to the $6.75 million settlement, which was distributed in varying amounts to the 150 current and formerly incarcerated individuals.
“But what about the rights of the injured correction officers from that assault?” Soter said. “We should be divulging who got those settlements, so correction officers are able to countersue for getting hurt.
“When it’s a government-funded settlement, taxpayers deserve a full transparent disclosure of what happened and who benefits from it,” the legislator added. “We keep absorbing these settlements without any kind of transparency… I’m certainly looking at legislation that will open the doors to transparency.”
A possible way to address the privacy issue is by adding a legislative “conviction clause,” he noted.
“If for some reason a prisoner receives a financial payout, the victims should have some way of filing for some of that windfall,” Soter said. “They deserve to know who got the payout, and taxpayers deserve to know.”
The DOC in its response to the Herald’s public records request about the settlement cited the safety of inmates and their families.
“The names of incarcerated individuals who received compensation because of a settlement agreement may be withheld from public disclosure based on statutory exemptions… as disclosures ‘could endanger the privacy or safety of the subject individuals,’” a DOC spokesperson wrote.
“The disclosure of personal information, including the identification of incarcerated individuals and the specific settlement amount disseminated to each, could lead to the location and identity of relatives, making them potential targets for threats in an attempt to obtain settlement funds for illicit purposes,” the DOC spokesperson added. “These individuals’ rights to protection against an unwarranted intrusion of privacy outweigh the public’s interest where that invasion of privacy places them in physical and financial danger.”
DOC also argues that publishing the specific monetary amount for each inmate could spark “safety and security concerns” inside the prison.
Other inmates could use the monetary information to threaten the compensated individual unless he shares the money, DOC says.
The state agency also notes that the records have criminal offender record information (CORI) in them. Outside of law enforcement representatives, CORI access is limited.
The Herald reached out to the state Auditor’s office, where Diana DiZoglio has been stressing the importance of transparency.
“The Supervisor of Records and courts are authorized to adjudicate records access and ensure the public records laws are fully adhered to by the Department of Corrections’ withholding of records citing the CORI Act,” Michael Leung-Tat, general counsel for the Office of the State Auditor, said in a statement.
In the class-action lawsuit, the inmates said the officers in a “Retaliatory Force Campaign” attacked more than 100 prisoners using “extreme, malicious, and cruel methods of force.”
This included officers: beating and kicking prisoners; gouging eyes; smashing faces into the ground or wall; deploying Taser guns, pepper ball guns, and other chemical agents; and ordering K9s to menace and bite prisoners.
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