Pubdate: Tue, 22 Aug 2006
Source: Lowell Sun (MA)
Copyright: 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.lowellsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/852
Author: Dennis Shaughnessey, Sun Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

GOV HOPEFUL VISITS LOWELL'S CBA

LOWELL -- While she does not line up completely with the Statewide 
Harm Reduction Coalition, (SHaRC) Green Rainbow Party gubernatorial 
candidate Grace Ross does agree the state is throwing good money after bad.

"Part of what worries me and part of the reason I'm running for 
governor is that we've heard all the rhetoric, but the state is still 
paying $43,000 a year for a prisoner who needs a rehab bed," Ross 
said. "It's the policy issues at the state level that have me 
concerned. There are basic solutions that we are not looking at."

Ross was in Lowell yesterday, following hard on the heels of SHaRC's 
day-long van tour calling for a moratorium on jail and prison 
construction in Massachusetts. After visiting the construction site 
of the Chicopee women's jail and traveling to the People In Peril 
Homeless Shelter in Worcester, the group made its way to the 
Coalition for a Better Acre in Lowell to discuss community needs, 
such as affordable housing and drug-treatment programs, among other things.

"We know what works. We know that money that is being spent on 
prisons could be used to increase low-income housing and local jobs. 
Republicans and Democrats both advocate tax and spend policies that 
have never been viable solutions to any problem," Ross said. "We want 
to see thing that actually make a difference in communities. We have 
a broken system and the people who are making the choices among us 
are consistently making bad choices."

Ross said change starts with grass-roots organizations like SHaRC.

"Laws get changed when people come together and come up with ways to 
change the laws," Ross told a handful of CBA representatives.

Armed with fliers, T-shirts, buttons and bumper-stickers, the SHaRC 
group repeated their no-prison mantra at the CBA office on Moody Street.

"We don't promote the punishment industry's solution to our 
problems," said Holly Richardson, a SHaRC community organizer. "These 
are crimes of poverty, and that's really who is going into all of our 
jails today."

Richardson said her group is trying to bring attention to "people who 
have been falsely imprisoned. Poor people who have to sit in jail 
cells for a long time because they can't afford bail."

The group hopes to pressure legislators to support a five-year 
moratorium on any new jail and prison construction or expansion. They 
have found an ally in Ross, who said that money used for prison 
construction could provide housing, health care, quality schools and 
drug treatment.

"Our main focus is to try to get the state to stop spending one more 
dollar on prison construction," Richardson said.

CBA Community Organizer Lindolfo Carballo, welcomed the discourse, 
saying that the CBA recently launched an aggressive affordable 
housing campaign.

"We are interested in anything that will help us make a connection," 
Carballo said. "We want to learn what they (SHaRC) are doing and 
listen to Ms. Ross, as well."

While Ross recognizes that hers is an uphill battle, she perseveres.

"If half of the 55 percent of people who don't vote, stand up and go 
to the polls on November 7, I think people would wake up on November 
8 and be incredibly surprised at the results," Ross said. "We'd have 
somebody like me in office and the Democrats and Republicans would be 
asking themselves, 'Who voted for her?' "
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman