Download for immediate release - Massachusetts Statewide Harm Reduction

Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition and Moratorium Endorsers
American Civil Liberties Union - Massachusetts . American Friends Service Committee (National) . American Friends Service Committee (NE Region)
American Friends Service Committee (Western MA) . Felix Arroyo, Boston City Council . ARISE for Social Justice . BAGLY . Center for Popular
Economics . Chuck Turner, Boston City Council . Citizens for Participation in Political Action . Community Change, Inc. – Boston . Community Church
of Boston . Connecticut River Valley Green-Rainbow Part y . Criminal Justice Institute, Harvard School of Law . Critical Resistance . Drug Policy
Forum of Massachusetts . Efficacy . Freedom Center . Holyoke Girls, Inc. . Out Now . Paloma House . Prison Book Program - Quincy
Prison Book Project – Western MA . Root 9 Collective . STEPServices . Tom Mooney Local Socialist Party USA
UAW Local 2322 . Western Massachusetts A.N.S.W.E.R. . Women's International League for Peace and Freedom - Boston
Press Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: Holly Richardson, 413.348.8234
www.stopchicopeejail.org
Amidst Construction of the Chicopee Women’s Jail
Community Members Call for Healthcare Not Jails!
CHICOPEE, MA – On Thursday, November 17, 2005, at 9:00am, organizers and allies of the Statewide Harm Reduction
Coalition (SHaRC) will gather for the second press conference in an ongoing series of actions to resist the construction of
the new Chicopee women’s jail (701 Center Street). While their first gathering focused on the issue of green space and
environmental stewardship, this action will focus on health care.
Speakers include: Will Hall (Freedom Center, SHaRC coalition member), Shirley McCready (Mass Senior Action), Iris
Wallace (Arise for Social Justice, SHaRC coalition member) and others.
“It’s not too late for the powers that be to change their minds. This structure could be re-purposed right now! It could be
a community center. It could be a community college. Thursday’s gathering will imagine it as a public health
clinic…anything but a jail,” says Out Now organizer and SHaRC member Holly Richardson.
Earlier this month the Massachusetts House of Representatives approved a healthcare overhaul that promises to cover
nearly all of the state’s uninsured residents over the next three years. “While this bill would give Massachusetts the
notoriety of healthcare coverage for most of its residents, it would also be the first state to force its citizens to purchase
health insurance. What happened to universal healthcare, which is proven to cost less and provide much better health care
for ALL the citizens of Massachusetts?” asks, Andrea Hornbein, Community Church of Boston and SHaRC member.
“This legislation ends up punishing people once again for not having money. Drug companies and insurance industry
stand to benefit the most,” adds Kimberly Milberg, Arise for Social Justice and SHaRC. “It’s time for the Massachusetts
government to take the lead in providing for its residents, not in taking the lead with yet another policy approach that will
surely do more harm than good,” concludes Milberg.
“A government that sees itself as caring for the people will not implement policies that punish people for failures of the
government, as this health care bill will do,” says Jo Comerford, AFSC and SHaRC.
With jail construction underway, organizers from across the state, many of whom have resisted a new women’s jail for
more than three years, have joined together to build an imaginative health care structure which includes a harm reduction
facility, an alternative medicine clinic and a free community health facility.
Arise Organizer, Iris Wallace suggests, “We know that alternatives to incarceration are cheaper than prison. Well,
community programs are even cheaper than alternatives and address the root causes of crime! We’re not going away.
We’re going to resist this jail with every fiber of our souls. Last month we built a park. This month, it’s a health clinic.
Next month, we’ll talk about housing. So much could be possible for our communities if we’d only turn back from the
terrible dead end of mass incarceration.”
For more information about SHaRC, call Holly Richardson (number above) or visit www.StopChicopeeJail.org.
END