Death, Illness, and Notification in Massachusetts Prisons

There are two directions a death or a serious illness can travel through a prison wall, and a family usually only thinks about it when it is already happening.

One direction is from the outside in. Someone in the family is dying or has died, and you need the prison to tell your incarcerated person, and you are wondering whether he can be there for it. The other direction is from the inside out. Your person is the one who is sick, or who has died in custody, and you are trying to find out what happened and what you are allowed to do. This article walks both directions for Massachusetts, run by the Massachusetts Department of Correction.

I am going to tell you something up front, because I learned it the hard way and I do not want it to land on you cold. An approval that has been granted is not the same as your person being there. Those are two different things, and the gap between them is where families get hurt.

When the Death or Illness Is on the Outside

If someone in the family is gravely ill or has died and you want your incarcerated person notified, the channel is the facility, usually through the chaplain or the assigned correctional program officer. Call the institution, explain the emergency, and be ready to provide verification, such as the funeral home's information or a death certificate for a death, or a hospital or physician confirmation for a serious illness.

Notification is the part that tends to work. Whether your person can leave the prison to be there is a separate and much harder question.

Attending a Funeral or a Bedside Visit in Massachusetts

Massachusetts handles this through furloughs and emergency escorted trips. By regulation, furloughs or emergency escorted trips may be granted for a limited set of purposes, including a death or critical illness in the family, and the facility may require that the trip be escorted by staff. Read these as the realities, not as promises.

It is escorted and discretionary. For a death or serious illness, expect a guarded trip with staff supervision rather than an unsupervised furlough, and expect the decision to turn on custody level, security, and the verified relationship. None of this is guaranteed.

It stays in Massachusetts. By regulation, a person may not leave the Commonwealth on furlough, so if the funeral or the dying relative is out of state, an in-person trip is generally not available. Plan around that.

The family generally bears the costs. As in most states, expect the family or the incarcerated person to be responsible for the costs associated with a guarded trip. Ask the facility for specifics as early as you can.

Now the part I promised you.

I was told I had a five-hour furlough to attend my mother's funeral. I was told to get dressed and wait for the escort. I got dressed. I waited. The escort never came. Word going around was that the warden had been moved or was on leave, and the assistant warden denied it. Nobody walked up to me with a form. The day just passed. What I got, in the end, was a free phone call.

I tell you that not to make you bitter before you start, but to make you smart. An approval that exists on paper is not a person standing at a graveside. Administrators change. Acting wardens reverse decisions. Escort details fall through. If you are pinning the family's grief on the hope that he will physically be there, you are building on sand. Plan the service around the family that can be there. If he makes it, that is a mercy. If he does not, you were not depending on it, and the grief is heavy enough without that.

Ask about a phone call at minimum. Even when a trip is denied or impossible, the facility can usually allow a call. Ask the chaplain or program officer directly, and ask early.

When the Illness or Death Is on the Inside

The other direction is harder, because you have less control and the information comes slower. But Massachusetts has one of the stronger medical release laws in the country, and families should understand it.

If your person is seriously ill in custody. Push for medical information, knowing that medical privacy rules limit what staff will share unless the incarcerated person has authorized release of information to you. Encourage your person, while able, to sign a release naming you. If the condition is terminal or grave, learn about Massachusetts medical parole now, not later.

Massachusetts medical parole. Since 2018, Massachusetts law has provided for medical parole, found in the state's General Laws, for a prisoner who is terminally ill or permanently incapacitated. Terminal illness is defined as a condition that appears incurable and is likely to cause death within about 18 months, and is so debilitating that the person does not pose a public safety risk. Permanent incapacitation is a physical or cognitive incapacitation that appears irreversible and is similarly so debilitating that the person is not a public safety risk. This is a meaningful law for two reasons. First, it applies regardless of the crime of conviction and regardless of the time left on the sentence, so even a person serving life can qualify. Second, the courts have made clear that the burden is on the prison, not the dying prisoner, to do the heavy lifting.

How the process works, and why that matters to you. A written petition for medical parole can be filed by the prisoner, the prisoner's attorney, the prisoner's next of kin, a medical provider at the facility, or a member of the Department's staff. That means you, as next of kin, can start it. Once a written petition is submitted, it triggers a clock: the superintendent must review it and send a recommendation, along with a medical parole plan and a physician's written diagnosis, to the Commissioner, generally within 21 days, and the Commissioner must issue a written decision, generally within 45 days. Crucially, the courts have held that the superintendent, not the prisoner, bears the responsibility of creating the medical parole plan and obtaining the physician's diagnosis, so do not let the prison tell your family that it is on you to produce all of that. A person released on medical parole is supervised by the parole board, and can be returned to custody if the medical condition improves. The practical lesson is the familiar one: file the written petition, in writing, as early as possible, document the diagnosis, and consider an attorney or Prisoners' Legal Services, because timing matters and a terminal illness does not wait.

If your person dies in custody. The Department notifies the family using the emergency contact your person has on record, which is exactly why that contact must be correct now. Make sure the listed person is reachable and will tell the rest of the family.

Investigation, autopsy, and the medical examiner. Massachusetts uses a centralized statewide Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, headquartered in Boston with regional offices around the state. By law, a death in custody, in any jail or correctional facility, is a death that must be reported to the medical examiner. The Chief Medical Examiner decides whether to accept jurisdiction, and where a death is from violence, unnatural causes, or natural causes needing further investigation, the office takes the case. In those cases the district attorney directs and controls the investigation, coordinating with the medical examiner and the police. The medical examiner or the district attorney may order an autopsy.

Claiming the body and getting answers. By statute, the medical examiner's office is responsible for releasing the body to the person with the proper legal authority, the surviving spouse, the next of kin, or in some cases a friend of the deceased, in that priority order. The office notes that most decedents are ready for release the same day the examination is completed, though delays can happen when identity or the proper claimant must be confirmed, so be ready to prove who the legal next of kin is. Autopsy reports in Massachusetts are not public records, but they are disclosed to those legally entitled to receive them, including next of kin, under the medical examiner's rules. The family generally works through a funeral home to receive the body. If the family cannot afford a funeral, ask the funeral home and the state about burial assistance.

What Families Can Do Before a Crisis

Most of the pain in these situations comes from decisions that were never made in calm times. A few things you can do now, while no one is dying:

Make sure your person has the correct emergency contact and next of kin recorded with the Department, and keep it current. This determines who the prison calls.

Have your person sign a release of information naming the family members who should be allowed to speak with medical staff. Without it, privacy rules will keep you in the dark.

Learn your person's custody level, because it affects whether an escorted funeral or bedside trip is realistic, and remember the trip cannot leave Massachusetts.

If your person has a terminal or grave condition, do not wait. File a written petition for medical parole, get the diagnosis documented, and hold the prison to its duty to prepare the medical parole plan. Consider an attorney or Prisoners' Legal Services.

Keep the funeral home's contact information ready, both to verify an outside death so your person can be notified, and to claim your person if they die inside.

State Resources

Massachusetts Department of Correction: contact the institution directly; use the DOC website and inmate locator for facility, chaplain, and program-officer contacts.

Massachusetts Parole Board: for supervision of medical parole and for regular parole.

Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Boston: for cause of death, autopsy, and release of remains.

Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics: for certified copies of the death certificate.

Prisoners' Legal Services of Massachusetts: for help with medical parole petitions.

Massachusetts 211: dial 2-1-1 for grief support, funeral assistance resources, and counseling referrals.