By Janette Ebbers, news staff
In an unassuming Huntington Avenue apartment over Boston House of Pizza, the Coolidge House provides room, board and support for a variety of former inmates, including those who were incarcerated for various drug-related crimes. Massachusetts has similar programs aimed at rehabilitation, but new ones are becoming scarce in the face of government emphasis on tougher enforcement of federal drug laws.
Aiming to address Massachusetts’ ongoing opioid crisis, Gov. Charlie Baker proposed a legislative package Aug. 30 that includes manslaughter charges for drug dealers whose clients overdose. If the bill passed, those found guilty would face a mandatory minimum of five years in prison.
Simon Singer, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern University, said Baker’s proposal marked a divergence from previous bills concerning the opioid crisis.
“There are two models that nations or states have followed different periods of times,” Singer said. “There’s the law enforcement model and the therapeutic model, and Baker seems to be going with the law enforcement model now.”
According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the death toll from opioid-related issues is twice as high in Massachusetts as the national average, prompting local lawmakers to address the crisis.
This legislative package is the latest in a line of bills Baker has proposed since he took office. Four bills in 2016 were also aimed at addressing the opioid crisis, but were mostly directed at limiting the amount of drugs in circulation.
The mandatory minimum clause is one of four objectives in the proposal, which also includes protections for police witnesses, harsher penalties for the solicitation of homicide and increased allowance for the state to classify new drugs.
In a letter to state legislators Aug. 30, Baker’s office justified the establishment of mandatory minimums for opioid dealers whose customers fatally overdose by comparing it to drunk drivers who commit vehicular manslaughter under the influence.
“When illegal drug distribution causes a death, laws that were designed to punish the act are inadequate to recognize the seriousness of the resulting harm,” Baker said in his letter. “This legislation would provide for a penalty of up to life in prison and, like the offense of manslaughter while driving drunk, would also require a mandatory minimum sentence of at least five years.”
Like Baker, federal leaders are increasingly turning to the law enforcement approach to address the national opioid crisis; Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions has abolished many Obama-era limitations on mandatory minimums, and has empowered federal prosecutors to seek the harshest penalty available for any given crime.
Baker’s proposed expansion of mandatory minimums fits into this trend of increased hostility toward drug crimes, somewhat fittingly, as Baker was appointed to President Donald J. Trump’s opioid commission. Singer said Baker’s latest response to the opioid crisis may be motivated by politics rather than practicality.
“It’s a response to public frustration about what’s perceived to be a major crisis, it’s a need to do something,” Singer said. “It’s very political in that sense. There’s no facts to support that it would reduce drug use.”
Northeastern’s new Student Alliance for Prison Reform (SAPR) chapter takes the opposing side of the punishment or rehabilitation debate. Gesele Henderson, fourth-year health sciences major and co-captain of SAPR, said rehabilitation has proven more successful, especially in regards to drug crimes.
“The way the United States, in my opinion, looks at prison, is more of a way to punish citizens rather than a rehabilitation and a way to re-integrate them into society,” Henderson said. “That’s what we work towards as a club, a way to push rehabilitation over punishment. If you rehabilitate, then we can regain them as members of our community, and that’s more powerful than just sending them away.”
Critics of the bill also point to Section 11 of Baker’s proposal, which blames overdose fatalities on the dealer, even if the user contributed to his or her own death by “purposeful, knowing, reckless or negligent injection.”
Danielle Dottor, second-year criminal justice major with a concentration in human services, said this particular section assigning all liability to the dealer is ridiculous.
“I’m not a fan,” Dottor said of section 11. “You’re punishing someone else for somebody else’s decision … It would be like if a doctor prescribes opioids to a patient not knowing that they’re addicted — maybe they prescribe too much, maybe they don’t — if the patient takes them and overdoses intentionally with the intent of overdosing, that doctor is now responsible.”
Although the legislative package includes provisions besides the mandatory minimum expansion, Singer said bills like this are not the answer to Massachusetts’ opioid crisis.
“We’ve had harsher penalties at the state and federal level, we’ve expanded our prison population, a lot of the incarcerated are there for drug dealing minor and major — but mainly minor — and we still have a crisis, and it’s getting worse,” Singer said. “The law enforcement approach, to me, doesn’t seem like it’s the answer.”
