Massachusetts To Pay $6.75M Settlement For Weeks-Long Prisoner Abuse

A federal judge has approved a $6.75 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit over violence against inmates at a Massachusetts maximum-security prison.

On Oct. 28, a final settlement was approved by the Department of Corrections (DOC) for over 150 current and former inmates, each set to receive between $10,000 and $40,000 for the violence they suffered during a 2020 crackdown at Souza Baranowski Correctional Center, WBUR reports. In addition to the settlement, the lawsuit will lead to prison reforms, including stricter use-of-force policies for officers, mandatory removal of staff found to have used excessive force, and the implementation of diversity and implicit bias training.

“This settlement represents a final step in a series of actions the Department of Corrections has taken in response to the incident, including a thorough review of existing policies and the implementation of key reforms,” DOC Commissioner Shawn Jenkins said in a press release.

The lawsuit, Diggs v. Mici, filed in January 2022, alleged that corrections officers used excessive force from Jan. 10 to Feb. 6, 2020. Prison staff and Carol Mici, the former DOC commissioner who retired in 2024, were also named in the suit.

According to the nearly 160 plaintiffs, correction officers and tactical teams carried out a “brutal and calculated collective revenge” against inmates who were not involved in an initial attack on several officers by a small number of prisoners. The lawsuit claims officers used Tasers, pepper ball guns, chemical agents, and dogs against inmates, and that dozens were forced to kneel against a wall with their hands and ankles shackled for hours.

“This brutality included beating and kicking incarcerated people; gouging eyes; grabbing testicles; smashing faces into the ground or wall; deploying Taser guns, pepper ball guns, and other chemical agents; ordering [canines] to menace and bite incarcerated people; and forcing people to kneel in stress positions with hands and ankles shackled, in some cases for several hours,” a press release from the plaintiffs’ legal teams state.

The DOC said it conducted a review of existing policies, consulted national experts, studied best practices, and drew on improvements in law enforcement, leading to the first changes to the Use of Force Regulations since 2009.

In the lawsuit, plaintiffs alleged unconstitutional treatment of Black and Latino inmates, claiming they were “targeted for particularly harsh treatment because of their race,” including excessive force, pulling or cutting dreadlocks, racial slurs, and other discriminatory actions. As part of the settlement, reforms include allowing inmates to self-report their racial identities during booking to prevent misidentification and explicitly prohibiting DOC employees from using racial slurs, with disciplinary measures for violations.

“DOC has consistently misidentified people of color as white, which not only denies individuals their right to self-identify, but also skews demographic data related to use of force and other incidents involving people of color,” the lawyers said.

David Milton, an attorney with Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, which filed the suit alongside Hogan Lovells, said settlements are uncommon in class-action cases involving prisoners. However, he hopes that this settlement will stop future violence and drive meaningful reforms at Souza, which he described as the state’s most violent prison.

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