Will you stand with PLS today?

As the new Executive Director at Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts (PLS), I’m writing to you today filled with a deep gratitude for you and the community of supporters who make our work possible. I joined PLS because I believe that any carceral system that fails to honor human dignity fundamentally betrays justice itself. Since starting in February, it’s been my distinct honor to work alongside an incredible team of advocates who bring PLS's mission into reality—by standing with those who are so often neglected and marginalized within our legal system.

At PLS, we challenge the carceral system through multiple approaches: our major impact litigation, individual client advocacy, policy change and public education work, and through elevating the voices of people in custody. This year, our work has spanned some of the most urgent and entrenched issues in Massachusetts correctional facilities—from healthcare neglect to solitary confinement, guard brutality to racial inequity, and the growing humanitarian crisis of immigration detention. Here are some highlights and new issues from our work this year:

Upholding Dignity in ICE Detention

For years, our Immigrant Detention Conditions Project has monitored civil detention conditions at Plymouth County Correctional Facility, now the last ICE detention site in the Commonwealth. Our most recent report, co-authored with the BU School of Law Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, laid bare the horrific realities that have persisted for over two decades: detainees held in frigid conditions, enduring malnutrition, medical neglect, and punitive solitary confinement. Many of these individuals are transferred out-of-state with no notice—often to Louisiana or Texas—severing ties to legal counsel and family.

But amidst this bleak landscape, your support made a profound difference. The project has expanded in scope to address issues that incarcerated immigrants face in the DOC and county jails. One of our clients was labor trafficked to the United States as a young man. At the time he reached out to PLS, he had not seen his family’s faces in almost twenty years. After our advocate intervened and advocated directly with the facility, he was granted a Zoom visit. “My sister was crying, I was crying—this is the greatest thing to happen to me since 2008,” he told us. This client has continued to advocate for the DOC to expand video visitation to include all immigrant prisoners who are isolated from their loved ones.

Holding the System Accountable

In one pivotal case, Evelyn v. Jenkins, we challenged the Department of Correction’s rebranding of solitary confinement. Despite laws passed to limit its use, individuals continue to endure isolation for over 22 hours per day in units with new names like “SAU IV” or “BAU.” Our lawsuit, filed alongside Boston College Law School’s Civil Rights Clinic, asserts that simply renaming solitary confinement does not make it legal—or humane. This case also recently had its class certified, paving the way for this substantial impact litigation to move to the next steps.

Fighting for Health and Human Rights 

Healthcare neglect represents over one-third of all requests for legal assistance we receive at PLS, underscoring the systemic failure across the carceral system to provide constitutionally adequate care. This year, we continued our groundbreaking medical advocacy in partnership with the Massachusetts chapter of the Medical Justice Alliance. Thanks to this collaboration, individuals like “Mr. Ward”—a 75-year-old man suffering from advanced dementia—were able to access medical parole and receive the care they deserve. Initially denied release, Mr. Ward’s case was overturned after our team submitted evaluations from medical volunteers documenting his severe condition. He is now receiving proper care in a nursing home.

Our health justice work also includes legislative advocacy to eliminate racial disparities in medical parole approvals and ensure that aging and terminally ill prisoners are not left to die behind bars due to systemic neglect. While individual representation remains essential, we also pursue broader strategic initiatives to address systemic inequities throughout Massachusetts correctional facilities.

Creating a More Just Future

Through our Racial Equity in Corrections Initiative, we are pushing for transparency, oversight, and equity in prison policies. Our Brutality Project continues to document patterns of staff violence statewide. We advocate for incarcerated women through our Women’s Incarceration and Reentry Project, and we provide trauma-informed support for LGBTQI+ individuals facing unique threats in prison.

All this work—litigation, direct representation, policy reform—is grounded in the belief that incarceration should never mean invisibility or abandonment. That belief is only possible because of donors like you.

As we approach the end of our fiscal year this June, will you make a contribution to support this impactful work? Your gift ensures that PLS can continue providing expert legal representation, fight for systemic change, and ensure that incarcerated people in Massachusetts are treated with dignity and respect.

No matter the amount, every donation fuels our advocacy. Every voice we amplify, every injustice we challenge, and every life we change is made possible by your generosity.

Thank you for standing with us—and for your commitment to our shared vision of justice and compassion.