A lesson in the criminal justice system
Families of those incarcerated attend teach-in
QUINCY — Family and friends of incarcerated individuals gathered Saturday with dozens of activists and community members for a teach-in to share resources and raise awareness about issues impacting prisoners and those in jail awaiting trial.
“Change starts when public perception demands it,” said Vanessa Dorestal, a criminal justice reform advocate and one of the organizers who recently began working regularly with incarcerated individuals, many of them men of color.
“I didn’t know much about how the criminal justice system worked until I heard these [incarcerated] men’s stories,” Dorestal said. “I was aware of some of the injustices, but I had a bias. And I realized that if I don’t know, there’s other people out there who don’t know, too.”
Nearly every seat in the annex of Quincy’s Church of the Nazarene was full — with plenty of people standing — for the “Learn and Build” event held Saturday afternoon by We Are Joint Venture, a prisoners’ rights organization whose incarcerated members are part of a larger group of political activists known as the African American Coalition Committee.
The event focused on teaching participants about joint venture, a legal theory that holds people equally responsible for a crime that they participated in — even if one played a much lesser role.
In Massachusetts, it’s meant that dozens of people are serving life sentences for assisting in or being present at the scene of a crime, while the person who held the gun or wielded the knife already walks free. In the case of felony murder (a murder that occurs while someone is in the process of committing another felony), this law was changed by the Supreme Judicial Court in 2017, but was not made retroactive, the subject of a Globe Spotlight investigation last year.
However, advocates from various organizations that work with current or formerly incarcerated people shared information on other parts of the justice system — such as life without parole, juvenile justice laws, and the process for re-entry into society — with a focus on holding elected officials accountable.
“Don’t wait for the law to change,“said Lynn Currier, a prisoners’ rights advocate who called on participants to write and call the offices of Governor Maura Healey, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, and US Attorney Rachael Rollins. Currier encouraged participants specifically to demand new investigations into trials where there is suspected prosecutorial misconduct, and to take a “second look” at cases where a defendant was under 21 when sentenced to life without parole.
“Yes, we push for the laws because we have to,“Currier said. “But we need to go right to the very top, because that’s where the systemic racism starts.”
State Representative Russell Holmes urged participants to not only vote on Election Day, but also to identify bills that they want to see become law and testify in favor of them at legislative hearings, or demand their local lawmaker’s support.
Katryna Hadley, mother of Cambridge rapper and social justice activist Millyz, said she was glad to attend the event to learn how to better spread the word among “old white people like myself.”
“We don’t always know that these people exist or what they’re going through, that’s the truth of it,” Hadley said. “These laws and theories, for an outsider it’s really confusing trying to understand how they get applied… but we can learn, and so we have to get the word out.”
Another mother, Kim Fontaine, said she was encouraged to attend by her son, who is currently incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk. Fontaine said she hopes to be more active in pushing for reform.
“I’ve always been someone who’s advocated for other people, but this is new for me,” Fontaine said. “I learned I’m not the only one, and that’s been powerful.”
Near the close of the event, applause and cheers rang out for James Watson, whose murder charges were dismissed in 2020 after being wrongly incarcerated for 41 years. Police and prosecutors accused Watson of brutally murdering a cab driver in 1984, but Rollins, while Suffolk district attorney, ordered his release in 2020 after discovering that prosecutors withheld evidence and hypnotized the witness who identified Watson.
Watson is among a growing group of wrongfully convicted men of color in Massachusetts who are determined to see their prosecutors brought to justice.
”They took me away from my only son… snatched up like a slave,” Watson told the crowd.
“But I didn’t let it hold me down... [That prosecutor] knew what he was doing to me was wrong, so now I’m holding him accountable, but I can’t do it alone,” he continued. “Let’s get out there loud, 24/7, because that’s what it’s gonna take.”