Massachusetts profile
- Sections
- Charts & graphs
- The cost of incarceration
- Reports & briefings
- Advocacy
- Other resources
- COVID-19
Massachusetts has an incarceration rate of 275 per 100,000 people (including prisons, jails, immigration detention, and juvenile justice facilities), meaning that it locks up a higher percentage of its people than almost any democracy on earth. Read on to learn more about who is incarcerated in Massachusetts and why.
16,000 people from Massachusetts are behind bars
Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Massachusetts is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 70,000 different people are booked into local jails in Massachusetts.
Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years
- total numbers rather than rates.
- Women’s prisons: Incarceration Rates | Total Population
- Men’s prisons: Incarceration Rates | Total Population
Today, Massachusetts’s incarceration rates stand out internationally
People of color are overrepresented in prisons and jails
See also our detailed graphs about Whites, Hispanics, and Blacks in Massachusetts prisons and jails.
Massachusetts's criminal justice system is more than just its prisons and jails
The high cost of being incarcerated in Massachusetts
Prisons and jails in Massachusetts are increasingly shifting the cost of incarceration to people behind bars and their families, hiding the true economic costs of mass incarceration:
- Jails in Massachusetts charge up to $3.15 for a 15-minute phone call, reaping profits for companies, while prisons charge up to $1.95 for a 15-minute phone call.
- Massachusetts suspended its $3 medical copay for people in prison at the start of the pandemic. It should eliminate this fee permanently.
- We do not know how much Massachusetts prisons charge for money transfers — one of the only states we don’t have data on.
- If a person in Massachusetts prisons has more than $10 in their commissary account they likely will not qualify for assistance to purchase essentials like hygiene items and postage.
- People in Massachusetts prisons earn as little as 14¢ an hour for their work.
- The Company Store: A deeper look at prison commissaries in Massachusetts
- Massachusetts charges up to 25¢ for an e-message to or from prison.
Our other articles about Massachusetts
- The cost of incarcerating older people is incredibly high, and their risk of reincarceration is incredibly low, yet 19% of people in Massachusetts prisons are over the age of 55. This is the highest rate in the nation! Why is the state keeping so many older people locked up?
- Prisons in Northeastern states, like Massachusetts, have seen the greatest increase in deaths during heatwaves.
- Massachusetts makes it difficult or even risky for incarcerated journalists to tell their stories.
- Massachusetts is one of 20 states that locks up some people convicted of sex offenses in shadowy "civil commitment" facilities, long after their sentences are over — and often indefinitely
- Massachusetts passed a caregiver mitigation and diversion law requiring judges to consider a person's status as a primary caregiver before imposing a sentence and offer alternatives to incarceration when possible.
- Some Massachusetts prisons are replacing incarcerated people's personal mail with scans, stifling family contact
- Massachusetts prisons release about 2,362 people every year
- Massachusetts has granted zero commutations to incarcerated people in recent years, including during COVID-19
- In some Massachusetts prisons, incarcerated people are forced to drink and breathe contaminants
- Massachusetts hurts jury diversity by excluding people with felony records
Punishing Poverty: The high cost of probation fees in Massachusetts- Research from Massachusetts: Prisons could do much more to prevent opioid overdose deaths among people leaving prison
- We graded the parole release systems of all 50 states — Massachusetts gets an F
- Who's helping the 5,061 women released from Massachusetts correctional facilities each year?
Our advocacy in Massachusetts
The Prison Policy Initiative is headquartered in Easthampton, Massachusetts. In addition to our national research, we have joined and led several campaigns for criminal justice reform in Massachusetts, including the following:
Protecting family communication and contact in Massachusetts
- People in Massachusetts jails often face high first-minute rates for phone calls
- Protecting visitation and mail in Massachusetts prisons
- New video: The high cost of calls home from the Hampden County Jail
- Massachusetts residents say NO to prison visitor dog sniffing policy
- Letter Urging the Massachusetts Department of Corrections to not subject prison visitors to dog searches
Sentencing enhancement zones in Massachusetts
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Reaching too far, coming up short: How large sentencing enhancement zones miss the mark - PRRAC Researcher Report: Sentencing Enhancement Zones Fail to Protect Children (Poverty & Race, November/December 2008)
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The Geography of Punishment: How Huge Sentencing Enhancement Zones Harm Communities, Fail to Protect Children, by Aleks Kajstura, Peter Wagner and William Goldberg, July 2008
- Mass. court to decide when sentencing enhancement zone reform takes effect
- "Smart on crime": Our letter to the Boston Herald
- "School Zone Laws Don’t Work": Our letter to the Valley Advocate
Prison-based gerrymandering in Massachusetts
- Massachusetts delivers prison gerrymandering resolution to Census Bureau
- Ending prison gerrymandering in Massachusetts campaign and resource page
- Massachusetts Legislature Calls on U.S. Census Bureau: Support Fair Redistricting, End Prison Gerrymandering
- Prison Gerrymandering in Massachusetts: How the Census Bureau prison miscount invites phantom constituents to town meeting
- Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Massachusetts
Protecting women from harsh punishments in Massachusetts
- Massachusetts women do not need a new jail
- Mass. anti-shackling bill signed into law
- Massachusetts women need more services, not more jail cells
- "Don’t sink more funds into jails for women": Our letter to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, April 2006
Our other victories and advocacy in Massachusetts
- Massachusetts removes major roadblock to re-entry: unnecessary license suspensions
- Ending harmful driver's license suspensions in Massachusetts
- Massachusetts Chief Justice Gants cites our research, calls for reform
- Prison Policy Initiative helps overturn a harmful banishment ordinance in Massachusetts
- Affidavit of Peter Wagner, August 14, 2006 in opposition to a Revere, MA city ordinance that would banish people classified as level 3 sex offenders from the city.
- Mass. Legislature should pass Innocence Commission bill
- Prison Policy Initiative on Massachusetts's counter-productive plan to charge prisoners for their incarceration
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Do you know where the children are? A Report of Massachusetts Youth Unlawfully Held Without Bail, by Barbara Fedders (Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School and Prison Policy Initiative Board Member) and Barbara Kaban (Children’s Law Center), September 15, 2006 - Jim Crow in Massachusetts? Prisoner disenfranchisement, by Peter Wagner, October 31, 2004.
- Massachusetts Disenfranchises its Prisoners November 2000, written for Mass Dissent
- Research on Massachusetts in our Research Library
- Massachusetts prioritized incarcerated people in their vaccination plans, and was able to vaccinate 75% of their incarcerated population.
- Low rates of staff vaccinations are leading to an uptick in cases among incarcerated population.
- How many COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts communities can be linked to outbreaks in correctional facilities? (data from our report Mass Incarceration, COVID-19, and Community Spread)
Other resources
Data on COVID-19 in Massachusetts jails and prisons
We gave Massachusetts a "D" grade in September 2021 for its response to the coronavirus in prisons, noting that:
For more detail, see our report States of Emergency. Or check out these other resources:
