Talk:Lemuel Shattuck Hospital

Correctional Unit Opening
I understand there is a separate page for the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital Correctional Unit. I'll leave debate over merge/don't merge on that page, however I think it's at least worth mentioning in this article that it exists.

I'm having a hard time confirming the opening date of the correctional unit specifically. The wiki article about the correctional unit states that it opened in 1974 with federal funding as part of a pilot program. It references an old Mass.gov page which mentions the same thing. However, I'm struggling to verify this - I cannot find any reference elsewhere as to a pilot program or federal funding.

On the other hand, I did find an article from the local Jamaica Plain Gazette, which states that the unit opened two years later in 1976, attributing the opening to the U.S. Supreme Court's Estelle v. Gamble decision regarding (to simplify) prisoners' right to healthcare. I can't find any other articles that support this, though it makes sense.

To sum, on one hand we have the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' account of the opening in 1974 with federal funding as a pilot program, versus a local newspaper's account of it being opened in 1976 as a result of a national court decision.

If anyone knows of or comes across any supporting information for either side, please let me know in a reply to this thread - I'm happy to do the editing myself. Mangocove (talk) 17:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)