Medford Human Rights Commission

May 13, 2015

Present: Chief Leo Sacco, Marie Cassidy, Dale Bryan, Judy Kaplan, David Harris, Muhammad

Chowdhury, Charlotte Swartz and Diane McLeod – ex officio

Not present: Lois Bronnenkant

Introductions

Public Participation

None

Minutes

Marie motioned to accept the April minutes, Judy seconded, all in favor.

New Business

Strategic Plan

Dale noted the 2013 strategic plan can be refocused, but everyone should review it for the June

meeting. It’s something we can work on over the next year. Diane will resend it to everyone

along with the ‘draft’ Annual Report for comment.

Diane noted the Open Meeting Law information from last month’s discussion. All members can

meet together socially, but cannot discuss business if there is a quorum of members present.

This holds true for email discussion. It is a violation to comment on items on line.

Old Business

Mass Incarceration in Massachusetts

The Chief said a clearinghouse on local data does not exist. Each facility has to be contacted

individually to get local data. The Middlesex House of Correction has 31 Medford residents and

there are 13 at jail awaiting trial. There are 183 on probation and 93 are pretrial, and 90 are risk

need (if you slip up you go to jail).

David thought that North Eastern University may have justice mapping by town.

Some of the issues discussed were; what is the racial breakdown on arrests, women being sent

to pretrial holding at Framingham, what the impact of a local forum would actually be if there

are jail and sentencing discrepancies, bringing communities together to better communicate

with police, and how families are affected, especially if the mother is being detained.

David mentioned the CORI issue, and that there are justice forums going on everywhere on a

weekly basis. Muhammad asked what Medford police are doing to be proactive and what are

the issues they are facing? The Chief felt direct officer input would be valuable to answer that.

David mentioned the possibility of taking the schools out of the plan including police and public

safety. He also mentioned that we could serve as the ‘incubator’ for these issues. Diane noted

that Medford Health Matters has recently taken that approach and found it to be a useful

model.

Dale mentioned the MLK Day discussion on transition to adults as the youth were interested in

getting parents involved. He also mentioned having community conversations. Dale asked that

we all think about strategic plan objectives for June. He also noted that there can be allies for

possible funding of some projects.

Correspondence & Announcements

None

Motion to adjourn by Charlotte, seconded by the Muhammad, all in favor. Meeting adjourned at

6:50PM.

Next meeting date - June 10, 2015