Prison still in lockdown
Guards seriously hurt in MCI-Souza-Baranowski attack
The MCI-Souza-Baranowski maximum-security prison remained in lockdown Monday, three days after a suspected Latin Kings beating that left three correction officers hospitalized.
“Everything is still under investigation,” Cara Savelli, a Department of Correction spokeswoman, said of Friday’s attack at the correctional center in Shirley. “The facility is still in lockdown.”
In addition to the department, State Police assigned to the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office are investigating, said Timothy J. Connolly, a spokesman for DA Joseph D. Early Jr.
On Sunday, Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito visited the correction officers who remained hospitalized. One has a possible fractured neck, missing teeth and severe facial wounds, and underwent surgery to reconstruct his jawbone, said Guy Glodis, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union.
Baker’s office declined to comment Monday beyond the governor’s tweet on the visit: “They were badly injured, but able to share their thoughts on what happened. Very grateful they were there for each other.”
Attacks on officers and staff at the Department of Correction’s 17 facilities have increased 150% over the last year, Glodis said. He attributed the increase to the 2016 Criminal Justice Reform Act. Although the union does not oppose providing mental health and substance abuse treatment and job training for minimum-security prisoners, Glodis said, the law made prisons overall more dangerous by relaxing many rules.
Friday’s attack should prompt “substantive and long-lasting operational changes” at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center, the union said in a statement. Those changes could include being able to separate gang members, limiting the amount of time inmates are allowed out on a prison tier, bringing new charges against any inmate who assaults an officer and withdrawing any “good time” that inmate may have accrued, Glodis said.
In a statement Monday, state Rep. Claire Cronin, who co-chairs the Judiciary Committee and helped write the Criminal Justice Reform Act, said: “I am deeply saddened by the injuries sustained by our correctional officers. I have reached out to the correction officers union. This matter should be properly investigated to unearth all facts contributing to the unprovoked attack on our correctional officers. The investigation should include a thorough review of the circumstances leading up to the attack.”