As lawmakers prepare this fall to debate plans to overhaul the state criminal justice system, one priority for advocates is a proposal that would allow defendants to be spared incarceration for nonviolent offenses if they are the primary caretaker of a child.
The challenge, activists said, is persuading lawmakers to adopt the plan alongside less controversial reforms expected to easily win passage.
“My concern is that we pass one bill and the other one ends up not getting through the Legislature,” said Representative Russell E. Holmes. “If we pass one bill and not the other, you will always hear: ‘We’ve done criminal justice reform.’ ”
Holmes, a Mattapan Democrat, spoke this week at Brookview House in Dorchester, where activists spoke in favor of offering alternative punishments to nonviolent offenders who are raising children.
[For more on this story by Laura Crimaldi, go to https://www.bostonglobe.com/me...h4pg9K3CL/story.html]
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