Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services Inc Dba Prisoners' Legal Svcs

What it reported doing in 2024

Pls's three largest general areas of work are our intake process, which brings in new client concerns from prisoners held in Massachusetts correctional institutions; our litigation work, which challenges harmful confinement through the court system, and our public policy and education work, that seeks to improve conditions for prisoners across the commonwealth by changing legislation or through awareness raising with communities. In fiscal year 2025, the intake team recorded several thousand intakes from clients held in the Massachusetts department of correction and the county sheriffs' offices, and provided individual advocacy in many of those cases as well, writing advocacy letters or submitting materials on behalf of our clients. The litigation team was involved in ten class action impact lawsuits against the doc or various county sheriffs offices, as well as two medical parole cases and one monitoring case where we continued to oversee compliance of an earlier court judgement. Our policy team advocated for changes to law in 10 different areas and provided expert testimony, guidance, and support to lawmakers and state agency officials considering those topics areas, including ending life without parole, a moratorium on new prison construction, and improving access to medical parole.pls's work focuses on supporting the civil rights and human dignity of prisoners held in Massachusetts correctional settings. To that end, we run a legal services program for indigent prisoners across the state, and use intake, litigation, and public policy tools to address violations of prisoners' legal rights. Our intake work is very procedural and does not typically come with major program accomplishments, but our team took over 1,000 new intakes from prisoners between july 2024 and the early days of 2025. Our team operates a dedicated prisoner phone line where clients can call us to request support for new issues they are experiencing, as well as a mail program for prisoners to send us documents or letters if they cannot use the phone. In addition to new intakes, our team also handles ongoing intakes from previous years that have not yet been closed because of the complexity of those individual requests (often involving medical treatment or care).in the litigation arena, we worked on 10 impact class action lawsuits. Major accomplishments included scheduling a trial date for linsenmeir v. Springfield police department et al in march of 2025 and overcoming defendants' various motions to dismiss the case. Pls settled the case with the hampden county sheriff's office in the spring of 2025 for $700,000 and required substantial policy changes to how the department addresses substance use disorders for incarcerated people. In our case evelyn et al v. Jenkins et al. About the overuse of restrictive housing in doc facilities, our class certification was approved over the opposition of the department of correction and moved forward towards discovery. In does v. Commissioner of correction, we continued to press the state on closing the Massachusetts substance and alcohol center (masac) due to discriminatory placement for men dealing with section 35 issues, and argued in november 2024 for the case to continue moving. The court ultimately decided the case was moot because of actions taken by the legislature to mandate the closure of the facility. Last of major wins, in the case of diggs v. Mici, a major class action of over 150 plaintiffs alleging serious violence at the hand of doc staff during a three week period of brutality in 2020, we survived various motions to dismiss and began a long discovery process. The case was ultimately settled in 2025 for over $6 million.in the public policy space, pls increased access to democratic process for its clients by partnering closely with client leaders to establish policy advocacy priorities, including elder and medical parole, visitation reform, increasing access to out of cell time, programming, and education,

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 74.1%; rating input score 74
• Program expense ratio: 82.6%; rating input score 83
• Fundraising efficiency: $21.77 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 61; 61st percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 17th percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
  • Compensation committee: Missing
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Missing
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 10.3%; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.78; rating input score 29; 29th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.29; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 17.3%; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 11.2% per year; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 9.8% per year; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 12.6% per year; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings