Copyright The Boston Globe
A federal judge last week approved a $6 million class action settlement, agreed to by the Massachuetts Department of Correction in May, on behalf of 150 inmates at the state’s maximum-security prison who claimed they were brutalized by staff in retaliation for an attack on guards in 2020, court records show. The settlement also provides for changes to policies governing use of force, police dogs, and enforcement of body-worn cameras at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. “I’m glad to see the resolution of the class action and hope it will provide some comfort to the men who were brutalized by DOC staff in January 2020,” Patty DeJuneas, a lawyer representing two of the men victimized in the 2020 “retaliatory force campaign,” said in a statement Tuesday. Advertisement “Paying out claims with taxpayer money, however, has proved insufficient to rein in the atrocities that occur inside DOC facilities on an almost-daily basis,” she added. US District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman’s approval comes amid a rash of inmate deaths in Massachusetts prisons. After twenty inmates attacked several correctional officers at the prison and and seriously injured four of them on Jan. 10, 2020, correctional officers allegedly engaged in “a brutal and lengthy campaign of excessive force and unconstitutional treatment” in retaliation to restore order in the prison, lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in court filings. “This unconstitutional brutality included beating and kicking prisoners; gouging eyes; grabbing testicles; smashing faces into the ground or wall; deploying Taser guns, pepper ball guns, and other chemical agents; ordering K9s to menace and bite prisoners; and excessively tightening handcuffs and forcing prisoners’ arms into unnatural and painful positions, among other positional torture tactics,” lawyers wrote. Advertisement US District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman ruled last fall that the suit could move forward, finding that corrections officers “used malicious and sadistic methods of force against prisoners, not to restore order but to punish prisoners for the actions of the few” who were involved in the assault. A spokesperson for the DOC said in May that the settlement upholds the agency’s “deep commitment to correctional policies guided by best practices, accountability, and collaboration.” The $6 million-plus will be distributed among the 150 plaintiffs in varying amounts, the spokesperson said. “The resolution of this matter reflects the DOC’s steadfast commitment to promoting the safety and security of everyone who lives and works within our state correctional facilities,” Public Safety and Security Secretary Terrence Reidy said in a May statement. “We remain dedicated to partnering with the DOC and its stakeholders to ensure a correctional environment that meets its complex operational demands while advancing rehabilitation in a way that is fair, just, and effective for all.” In 2021, the Boston Globe Spotlight Team detailed how two Souza-Baranowski prisoners, Dionisio Paulino and Robert Silva-Prentice, were transferred on Jan. 22, 2020, to a cell that is out of view of prison surveillance cameras. The Spotlight investigation, titled “The Taking of Cell 15,” described how SWAT officers stormed into the cell while a police dog barked furiously just outside. Paulino was hospitalized with gashes later that day and Silva-Prentice said he spent the afternoon crying out for medical attention for himself, which never came, the Globe reported. The two men filed a separate federal lawsuit that has since been settled, the Globe reported. Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report. Advertisement Truman Dickerson can be reached at truman.dickerson@globe.com.
