There is certainly reason to celebrate that Massachusetts’ Department of Correction Commissioner, Kathleen Dennehy, has been asked to step down.  It is indeed Ms. Dennehy who supports the building of more prisons and jails in order to address issues of "over crowding", rather than actually seeing how over crowding is intentional.  Ms. Dennehy has also been complicit in the death of over a dozen prisoners.  However, Ms. Dennehy is simply taking yet another job within the Prison Industrial Complex in Bristol County, where there was yet another death of an inmate.  It is also tragic to see the comments from Senator Jarrett Barrios and Rep. Kay Kahn.  To think that anyone could see Ms. Dennehy as a "reformer" and yet also consider themselves part of a movement to protect the rights of prisoners is appalling.  The article in the Boston Globe has plenty more to critique, such as MCOFU’s comments.  While I think Dennehy has done more bad than good, the guard union is even worse.  A policy to limit excessive force is by no means endangering the prison guards who I know regularly beat, bruise, and batter people I care about on the inside.  Each day it seems as if the Massachusetts Department of Correction does something else to tear at the lives of people in prison.  

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