Public Meeting Notice  Panel on Justice-Involved Women Meeting

Overview   of Panel on Justice-Involved Women Meeting

A meeting of the Panel on Justice-Involved Women will be held on February 27, 2023 at 1:00-2:30PM via Microsoft Teams at the following link: 

Click here to join the meeting

Meeting ID: 290 725 920 777
Passcode: cJpjhC

Meeting Minutes

1. Call to Order and Roll Call Attendance
   1. Roll Call attendance was taken and a quorum has been established.
   2. The meeting was called to order at 1:05.
2. December 2022 Meeting Minutes Review/Vote
   1. P. Murphy motioned to accept the minutes; N. Connolly seconded.
   2. Roll Call vote was taken, and the minutes were accepted.
3. 2023 Panel Plans
   1. Kyle Pellitier will be the new chair of the board in March as Chairwomen Hallet will be retiring.
   2. N. Connolly thanked Chair Hallet for her work on leading the group and she will be missed.
   3. Parole needs to make another appointment to the board. EOPSS will follow up.
   4. P. Murphy – getting the 2022 report completed and published should be a priority. June should be a good target date to complete the report.
      1. EOPSS Support will circulate the previous report and provide feedback for the next meeting. EOPSS will also circulate the recommendations that were submitted by the working groups.
   5. P. Murphy – What do we want to do with our data? Should it go into the report or should it go into a secondary report. There were some groups that have not presented, and some groups have been put on hold. Due to the lack of a comma in the statute there was a hold on a working group as the comma would determine whether or not an additional working group would be created. Senator Freidman was responsible for looking into the issue – she did not provide any additional information.
   6. S. Ruiz – a lot of the presentations seemed to be preliminary research and to make recommendations we would need a deeper understanding.
      1. P. Murphy – agrees that we wouldn’t want to make a recommendation without going into more detail and doing site visits. Are you and DPH interesting in looking into Reproductive Health?
         1. S. Ruiz – We did that as it was written into the Statute. We do see that there are local partnerships with OBGYN’s but have not looked further. It is not DPH’s priority at the moment.
   7. Chairwoman Hallett – One struggle is getting people to the meetings. We will see if the House of Representatives will appoint another Representative as Rep. Tyler has not been joining. We were able to pull reports from the dashboard and it is quarterly data. 196 women in the DOC and it does not appear that we have anyone out of state. Males are 5,936 – roughly 3% of the population is women.
      1. P. Murphy- the numbers are separated by men and women by facility as well.
   8. Chairwoman Hallett reached out to the GC of DOC regarding paying the individuals for  their time during interviews. They do not offer a stipend.
      1. Arielle Mullaney the board is not funded but it is also unique as it is a state-run board and it’s a DOC board that is overseeing DOC. Compensation is not something that can come from this board.
      2. Daisy Hernandez – As a community if we wanted to gift money to the board would be that be allowed?
         1. Arielle – As a board I would not recommend.
         2. H. Sarang – Sieminski : In order to keep this data, clean I would not recommend this. The power differential seems more of a cloud of judgement than compensation. If there is an interest in creating a recommendation to compensate for surveys in the report, I would support that.
         3. Chairwoman Hallett – the request is not just for the women these requests are across the board.
         4. S. Ruiz – Power Differential : will we have the chance to speak to the women without CO’s present?
            1. Chair Hallett – Yes, you are able to do so.
            2. P. Murphy – That is the same for the Sheriff’s as well it is considered a Professional Visit
            3. Marie Turly – it is important to meet with Staff as well during the visits. There is a lot of clarification surrounding the misconceptions or mis ideas of what occurs. Around compensating the women because this is a state commission you should look at that as it is part of a process. Look at the implications of it rather than a research group which is different. There are other ways to empower people other than compensation. Recommendations are going to have implications so please really think them through. She states she is speaking from personal experience and not on behalf of the Sheriff’s office.
         5. D. Hernandez – Full time employer is partnering with the Commission for State Government, and they are doing interviews with people with lived experiences and will share those flyers with the group. Advisory Board with Mental health and substance abuse.
            1. Marie Turley – Look at the McGrath house.
         6. Kyle Pelletier- Catching up on all the material and learning where the panel is at. Looks forward to working with anyone
4. Future Site Visits
   1. MCI Framingham will be the facility that the group tours. Patty will coordinate the site visits with the Sheriff’s.
   2. The group will submit the facilities in which they would like to tour. Patty will send a list of the facilities that can be toured. EOPSS will send a poll to the group to see who would like to attend.
5. Member Comment
   1. P. Murphy – do we have goals for the next year?
      1. Tours
      2. Developing a Survey for staff and population
      3. This will be set as an agenda item for the next meeting.
   2. P. Murphy – We had some reference questions from a group that conducted interviews. Daisy and I could create a draft of the questions and share that with the group ahead of time.
   3. Allison Hallett thanked the panel for their work and reflects on her time at the DOC.
6. Public Comment
   1. There were no comments entered during this agenda item.
7. Adjourn
   1. The meeting was adjourned at 2:05pm.

Read Full Minutes 

Agenda

1. Call to Order and Roll call Attendance
2. December 2022 Meeting Minutes Review/Vote
3. 2023 Panel Plans
4. Future Site Visits
5. Member Comment
6. Public Comment
7. Adjourn