If you haven’t seen my newest piece on Boston Magazine where I lay out why bail jails are not the way to go, please check it out here. The basic idea is this: Other states have jumped into the lead with bail reform, but Massachusetts is still lagging behind.

“If you could save $125 a day per person, increase public safety, reduce overcrowding without building new prisons and jails, and only lock up those awaiting trial who have been deemed truly dangerous, would you take that deal?”

Some months ago on twitter, I came across Shane Bauer, whose amazing article “Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America’s Prisons,” I had read in Mother Jones Magazine. Like me, Shane did not intend to become a prison activist. It happened because of his experience inside prison. Unlike me he was a hostage and suffered as a prisoner. His work is always informed by insight and knowledge and he doesn’t pretend to know all.

So, when I saw a tweet by Shane that he was in “Tampa for the American Correctional Association’s annual convention–the big meet-up of prison industries, guards, and wardens,” I had a strange reaction. Why on earth go to a convention where everyone is making money off prisoners? I have been to these conventions, seen the products and talked to the practitioners. Even Alan Mills, a fellow follower and prison activist, told him to have fun in “the belly of the beast.” But Shane’s tweets assured us he would eventually us his insights for another piece. I asked him if I could share them, so here are some of his tweets from today, February 1st. They speak for themselves.

• “Learn prison Spanish! A guide at the American Correctional Association convention. pic.twitter.com/eREywvVmR1.”
• “CCA private prison warden in Tennessee says to me: ‘No one says, “I want to be a warden when I grow up.'”
• “A corrections consultant who worked in Afghanistan says to me, ‘Afghans are easy to lock up. A lot easier than Americans.'”
• “Sitting in a workshop at the American Correctional Assoc. Convention on how to save money on prisons–telemedicine!”
• “If your doing mental health, you don’t need anything more sophisticated than a camera and a screen,” says x-warden re telehealth in prison.”
• He also tweets that “ER and Trauma visits” are a “new frontier,” — over a TV.
• “Nurse giving class on seizures…says threatening to take someone’s temp anally (then doing it) is a way to tell if they are faking it.”
• “Sitting in a workshop “Avoid Falling in Love With an Inmate,”… (The teacher is a man).”

• My favorite tweet: “‘Stand if you’ve worked in a jail or prison.’ About 50 stood. ‘Sit if you’ve never heard of staff having sec with an inmate.’ No one sat.”
• Some prisons have had staffing problems, so they reduced the age limit for guards from 21 to 18. In Tennessee the limit is 18 statewide.
• “How do you know if an inmate is trying to manipulate you? They try to make friends with you. Once you go down to their level, you’re toast.”
• CCA private prison warden to colleague: “You know what you need to do? You need to start a nursing home company for geriatric inmates.”
• Next workshop at the American Correctional Association convention: suicide resistant cell design. (Taught by a former ER cast member.)
• A company that designs suicide proof vent grills offered a Harley to anyone who could hang himself successfully. Many tried. None succeeded.
• “‘Loss of life has a very demoralizing effect on staff and the threat of liability is significant.’ That’s the most emotion we’ve got so far.”
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Thanks Shane–I look forward to whatever you write from this. I have written about some of these issues on Boston Magazine, (suicide smocks as a disastrous fix, for example) but it is profound to hear them in 140 words or less, so shockingly straight up. The business of Corrections was written about well by Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind in their report at The Sentencing Project in 2002, and CNBC featured an expose on the billions made on Corrections which is available online

The beat goes on as long as under 2% goes to programming and 98% goes to Corrections, as in my state of Massachusetts..

The good, the bad, and the very very ugly. These are some things that stood out for me in 2013, and with them, I wish you all a Happy New Year.

1. Wonderful news for every prisoner who managed to get out of prison, stay out, stay clean, promote a worthy cause, get a job, heal/end negative relationships, and/or make a healthy start: bravo.

2. Thankfully Massachusetts has finally improved on a federal law. We struck down life without parole for juveniles: The ruling goes farther than the Supreme Court decision in 2012 that struck down automatic sentences of life without parole for juveniles per The Boston Globe.

3. Massachusetts raised the age of juveniles — finally — from 17 to 18. As of July, 2013, 37 other states had already raised the age so juveniles would not be tried as adults. But in Massachusetts, a child of 14 who kills can stil be tried as an adult. (What say you, progressives?)

4. Annie Dookhan went to jail for her part in the state drug lab scandal but how many assistant district attorneys did not? And why is there still such silence about this? Apparently, the moola — $8.5 million already spent to deal with this and Legislature setting aside an additional $8.6 mil — and putting innocent people behind bars and releasing people who may or may not be ready is all gonna fall on her shoulders.

5. The Department of Correction started to search visitors at state prisons with a new dreadful policy which I wrote about in October: "Prison Visitors Sniffed by Drug Detection Dogs: This isn't a Fix". And now, thanks to the fight by Lois Ahrens of The Real Cost of Prisons Project  (RCPP) and the gritty legal work of Prisoners Legal Services of Massachusetts (PLSMA), there's a lawsuit in the works.

6. Speaking of PLS, they were part of a campaign to end the high rates of phone calls for prisoners to contact their loved ones– a real travesty. Easthampton's Prison Policy Initiative also did important work on the prison phone industry, was mentioned in a New York Times editorial, and helped to collect 36,690 petitions to the FCC. They ruled on interstate rates on August 9th and have not yet ruled on intrastate rates.

7. Shackling female prisoners while giving birth once again came up at an important hearing held at the Massachusetts State House in December. Per the Telegram and Gazette "'It is inhumane and puts the woman's and the fetus's health at risk,' said Megan Amundson, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts."18 other states ban the practice, but not Massachusetts. For more important info about this, go to The Prison Birth Project.

8. Perhaps the only good news from the horrendous three strikes bill Massachusetts passed in 2012 were some sentencing reforms for those convicted of drug crimes. As FAMM Massachusetts wrote "About 1,500 Massachusetts drug offenders became eligible for parole, either at an earlier date or for the first time ever. Other prisoners serving drug sentences have been released early because they could finally use their earned “good time” credits to shorten their sentence."

9. Of course that brings us to the Parole Board. As I wrote in "Locked Up and Nowhere to Go," our Parole Board is still not releasing prisoners at a healthy rate of parole. There are many 5 year setbacks for lifers and many instances of not following best practices around the country as the White Paper on parole showed us this year. We have an opening — still not filled in months! — and we need someone with expertise in drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

10. Meanwhile, prison construction has not stopped in Massachusetts (proposals for expanded jail in Chicopee and expansion underway in Billerica for starters), and in 2013, there began a major push by RCPP, Families for Justice as Healing, the Massachusetts Women's Justice Network and others to fight: H1434, a Bill sponsored by Rep. Kay Khan and co-sponsored by Rep. Denise Andrews and Jason M. Lewis, which says "There shall be established in Middlesex County, a Women's Pretrial Facility. Said facility shall be operated, administered and staffed by the Middlesex Sheriff. The facility shall house women convicted of a crime that provides for a house of correction sentence and women detained while awaiting trial." Lots of reasons why this makes no sense. Thanks to Lois Ahrens and Louellyn Lambros for info on this. EPOCA (Ex prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement ) is also committed and mounting a campaign for 2014 called "Jobs not Jails."

11. Many organizations also turned out this December to stand up against the use of solitary confinement in Massachusetts and support a bill co-sponsored by Sen. James Eldrige (Acton) and Rep. Elizabeth Malia (Jamaica Plain) to stop its inappropriate use. I wrote about this here after a PLS sponsored hearing earlier this year. Their testimony from the December hearing shows why Massachusetts needs to pass this bill.

I am sure that there are other notable criminal justice YESES and NOS that happened in 2013 in Massachusetts. Let me know — it's important for us to celebrate but also to keep up the pressure to change our unwieldy and often harsh criminal justice system. And to all of you and your organizations — too many to name — who are fighting to change the system in Massachusetts and elsewhere, thank you for your work. Blessings.

From Boston University Online Masters in Criminal Justice