Bill > H1621

This bill establishes the Massachusetts Prisoner Bone Marrow Donation Program within the Department of Correction, allowing eligible incarcerated individuals to receive up to a sixty-day sentence reduction for donating bone marrow. A Bone Marrow Donation Committee, composed of the Department of Correction's Medical Director, a bone marrow specialist from a Massachusetts hospital, and a representative from a bone marrow donation advocacy organization, will determine the amount of donation required for the sentence reduction and oversee the program's implementation and administration. This committee will also be responsible for filing annual reports detailing donation amounts and estimated life savings to the state's executive and legislative branches. Importantly, the costs of the program will be borne by the institutions that benefit from the donations and their affiliates, not by the Department of Correction, and no monetary payments will be made to the Department for inmate donations.