STATE HOUSE — Massachusetts women civilly committed for substance abuse treatment will no longer be sent to prison and instead will be referred to one of the 60 new state hospital beds slated to open this year under a law signed by Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday.
"For the past 30 years and for reasons I don't fully understand, the commonwealth of Mass. has routinely under state law sent women who were civilly committed due to a substance abuse disorder to Framingham state prison instead of to a treatment facility," Baker said after signing the law. "By signing this legislation today…I can now say that the commonwealth of Mass. will no longer be sending women to prison who need treatment."
BOSTON – When Carl and Julie Stone discovered four years ago that their third child, Josiah, would be born with trisomy 21, or Down syndrome, they didn't blink.
"It didn't frighten us, it didn't scare us, it didn't make us sad," Stone said. "We simply wanted to spend the last 20 weeks of the pregnancy doing everything we could to give this child every possibility to succeed."
