By Grace Zokovitch
Boston Herald
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union responded following a Herald report detailing inmates who received portions of a $6.75 million settlement related to facility response to a 2020 incident at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, calling the payments a “disgrace.”
“Inmates paid state dollars after viciously attacking our Correction Officers (COs) is a disgrace,” the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union said in a statement. “Three of our COs were nearly killed on January 10th, 2020, doing their jobs. Now we learn the state has paid, in fact rewarded, inmates who assaulted their own employees instead of taking steps to make Massachusetts’ most dangerous prison more secure.”
Over a year after the $6 million settlement was awarded from Souza-Baranowski inmates’ class action lawsuit — the state’s largest publicly funded settlement in 2025 — the Herald reported on a leaked internal DOC memo detailing some of the 150 inmates who received up to tens of thousands of dollars in payouts.
The lawsuit followed a violent incident at the Shirley -based facility in early 2020, when several inmates at the maximum-security prison assaulted correction officers, resulting in serious injuries to four officers. Sixteen prisoners were charged in the attack.
The prison was placed on secure status for nearly a month, which the inmates’ lawsuit alleged resulted in “a brutal and lengthy campaign of excessive force and unconstitutional treatment.”
Of the $6.75 million settlement, $5.75 million was awarded to 150 prisoners in varying amounts and $1 million slated for attorneys’ costs and fees.
The leaked memo listed 69 of the 150 inmates and formerly incarcerated individuals who were eligible for settlement payouts, including six charged in the original 2020 attack at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center.
The correction officers union noted continued concerns at the prison facility in the statement Sunday.
“Souza Baranowski is even less safe today than it was in 2020; this is a call we have made to Department of Correction leadership for years, and it has been continually ignored,” the union stated.
—
©2026 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at bostonherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
