Skip to content
Stories

Investing in Communities Not Prisons: Should Massachusetts Build a New Women’s Prison?

Photo by: risingthermals

In an interview with WGBH News, Northeastern Distinguished Law Professor Daniel Medwed discusses the dilapidated condition of Massachusetts’ only women’s prison and the possibility a new one will be built. Medwed points out the factors that make women’s prisons distinct and highlights activists’ desire that the state invests in communities instead of prisons.

A lot of activists have pushed back based on the idea that building a prison—in effect, investing in cages—is not necessarily in line with the contemporary conversation, the movement toward decarceration, toward grappling with the problem of mass incarceration. And that instead these funds should be allocated to communities. In essence, that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, that if we can stop problems at the front end by addressing issues like homelessness, poverty, lack of economic opportunity, that might be a better use of our limited resources.

Daniel Medwed, WGBH

Read or listen to the full interview here

(Photo by: risingthermals)

More Stories

A ‘forgotten pioneer’: Northeastern graduate Zandra Flemister, the first Black woman to serve in the US Secret Service

03.02.2023

Award-winning Digital Transgender Archive makes often hidden yet sprawling trans history accessible

03.02.2023

Angela Davis Addresses Large Crowd at Mills College at Northeastern

03.09.23
All Stories