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DOC settles lawsuit for nearly $7 million after prisoners allege ‘retaliatory force campaign’
The proposed settlement in a class action lawsuit brought by people currently and formerly incarcerated at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center is still awaiting approval in federal court.
The DOC agreed to pay nearly $7 million to settle a class-action lawsuit after correctional officers allegedly systematically beat and brutalized inmates, particularly inmates of color, during a “violent campaign” for retribution.
The DOC agreed to pay the $6,750,000 settlement, of which $1 million goes to attorney fees, and which is still awaiting court approval. The remaining nearly $6 million will be distributed “in varying amounts” among about 150 plaintiffs who are former and current inmates at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, the DOC said.
“This 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; and order K9s to menace and bite prisoners,” the settlement memorandum filed by the inmates’s lawyers said.
‘Retaliatory Force Campaign’ alleged at Souza-Baranowski
In January of 2020, three guards were hospitalized after a group of inmates attacked a guard at Souza-Baranowski in Shirley. The facility was in “secure status” through Feb. 6, 2020, where tactical responses were used to restore order, MADOC said.
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The Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, which was part of the team representing the nine named plaintiffs, filed a federal lawsuit in 2022. The suit claimed guards used “extreme, malicious, and cruel methods of force designed not to restore order, but to inflict pain, fear, and trauma.”
“The Retaliatory Force Campaign consisted of weeks of unprovoked, retaliatory violence at SBCC prisoners, and amounted to an unlawful, orchestrated effort to intimidate, injure, and violate the rights of prisoners in retaliation,” the complaint alleged.
During the “campaign of violence,” PLS said, Black and Latino inmates were unconstitutionally targeted due to their identities. Officers would yank or cut or dreadlocks from people’s heads, including to settle “a bet to see who could remove the longest dreadlocks,” according to the complaint.
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The officers uses racial slurs, and, on multiple occasions, “sicced K9s onto Black and Latinx prisoners,” the complaint read.
The suit named Carol Mici, the former commissioner of the MADOC who retired in 2024, as a defendant, along with dozens of other administrators and law enforcement officers at SBCC. The lawsuit alleged the “Retaliatory Force Campaign” was authorized by Mici and her deputy commissioner.
The new DOC Commissioner, Shawn Jenkins, said in a statement that the settlement “represents a final step in a series of actions the Department of Correction has taken in response to the incident.”
“The DOC did not wait for settlement discussions to act,” Jenkins said in a statement, noting that the department consulted with national experts and conducted research.
DOC to implement body cameras, limit use of K-9s
After the initial January 2020 incident, the state department reviewed existing policies and amended its use of force regulations for the first time since 2009, the DOC said. Its K-9 policy was revised to limit its use to situations in which officers need to gain control during major disorder situations, with the commissioner’s approval, a change that was also in the proposed settlement agreement.
“We proactively amended use of force regulations, updated policies on K-9 deployment and disciplinary investigations, and implemented a Body-Worn Camera policy to enhance transparency, accountability, and training across all DOC facilities,” Jenkins said.
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The department’s new body-worn camera program will require officers to film any “critical incident,” including any interactions between correctional officers and incarcerated people “that escalates or poses a safety or security risk,” the DOC said. Such incidents could include “assaults, suicide attempts, deaths, fires, escapes, or uses of force,” the department said.
The proposed settlement agreement also implements a progressive discipline program for officers who fail to use their body cameras.
In addition to paying the settlement, the proposed settlement agreement removes correctional officers who have used excessive force from Special Operations Response Units for at least three years and prohibits the use of kneeling as a “stress position.”
Other reforms include required name tags for Special Operations officers, an anonymous staff misconduct hotline for DOC employees, and the explicit prohibition of racial slurs by officers, according to PLS.
“This proposed settlement aims to bring justice to the many incarcerated people injured by extreme and unlawful use of force by officers,” said David Milton, a lawyer at PLS. “This proposed settlement is about holding DOC accountable for the harm it causes by perpetuating a culture of violence at SBCC and allowing officers to harm incarcerated people with impunity.”
Officers’ union: Settlement ‘does nothing’ to address safety concerns
The Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, which represents a majority of the department’s officers, criticized the settlement. In a statement, the executive board said the initial 2020 assault “spoke directly to the lack of safety at Souza Baranowski,” and the response was directed and supervised by the DOC.
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“Today we call on the DOC leadership team to work with us to improve safety protocols inside our state prisons for our officers, inmates, and the DOC. Our union has ideas, and we have been trying to present them to DOC leadership,” their statement on Facebook said. “This settlement does nothing to address the safety concerns of our members.”
Massachusetts Public Safety and Security Secretary Terrence Reidy said the settlement “reflects the DOC’s steadfast commitment to promoting the safety and security of everyone who lives and works within our state correctional facilities.”
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