By K.B. Sherman, Contributing Writer
“It’s unfortunate that in many states where capital punishment has been abolished, prisoners may face life in prison without possibility of parole (LWOPP),” said Nathaniel Harrison, recently elected to the board of the Criminal Justice Policy Coalition, an organization “dedicated to the advancement of effective, just, and humane criminal justice policy in Massachusetts.”
According to their website, the coalition seeks to advance more enlightened criminal justice “by expanding the public discourse on criminal justice, promoting dialogue and cooperation among diverse stakeholders, and building support for policies that better protect our communities, promote accountability and change for offenders, and provide restitution to victims.”
They hold occasional networking meetings on a variety of criminal justice issues, sponsor public forums and conferences, organize legislative action, and provide support and coordination to groups engaged in advocacy.
Harrison has spent most of his life as a reporter and is a strong advocate for social justice in general and prison reform in particular. In his younger days, he was involved in peace and justice issues.
Harrison said his defining “moment” was having been born in Boston in 1946 and thus was caught up in the 1960s cultural circus of the Vietnam War, civil rights, prisoners’ rights, and liberal college protests. Before he graduated from college he had made the decision to apply himself to social activism and causes he considers just.
After graduating with a degree in English from Bowdoin College in 1968, he joined the Peace Corps and spent several years working in Africa. He then joined the Lowell Sun as a reporter and subsequently for several decades was a reporter for the French News Agency, and traveled to France and Egypt. Other reporting jobs took him to Washington, D.C. and then back to France.
“I’ve been involved with the LWOPP Movement since 1972 – the year after the Attica Prison Riot,” a two-week standoff during which 43 people – including 10 guards – were killed, Harrison said.
This led him to join the Peaceful Movement Committee (PMC) started at Massachusetts Corrections Institution – Concord and coincided with his beginning as a reporter for the Lowell Sun. While in the PMC he helped start a prison newspaper. The committee met once a week to talk and share and to work on various projects. Regarding the LWOPP issue, the group is seeking legislation that would mandate parole review after 25 years, a sentence that would at least offer the possibility for release and a return to society.
While working in Paris he was a prison visitor and part of a national program to offer support and friendship to men from France and other countries serving short- to medium-term sentences.
He is opposed to what he considers mass incarceration. One prisoner he met in Concord remains incarcerated in Massachusetts, though he continues to appeal his conviction. They have stayed connected over the last 43 years and, as he has been moved frequently from prison to prison, Harrison believes that as a result he has visited every state penal institution in Massachusetts.
Harrison enjoys hiking, particularly in the White Mountains, when he takes the time off from his volunteer work. Originally from Massachusetts, in 2014 he and his wife moved back to Massachusetts to retire. They have a grown son and daughter.
