Don Berwick on Crime

No death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber

During a video debate Wednesday on The Boston Globe's website, Boston.com, they were asked: "should Dzhokhar Tsarnaev face the death penalty?" All five--Donald Berwick, Martha Coakley, Joseph Avellone, Juliette Kayyem and Steve Grossman--answered "no."

Republican candidate for governor Charlie Baker said Tuesday that he supports the decision to seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev. The question has put some death penalty opponents in an awkward position given the high-profile nature of the crime.

Invest in prevention and rehabilitation

I agree, and the foundations of my platform for corrections reform in Massachusetts will be consistency, fairness, and investments in prevention and rehabilitation. It makes no sense at all--nor does it contribute to the "moral order"--for our Commonwealth to maintain a corrections system that increases the burden of crime in our society, adds useless costs to our public budget, and that trains offenders to remain offenders, instead of returning them, as far as possible, to productive participation in our communities.