Stanley Rosenberg 2015

State Senate President Stanley Rosenberg is seen speaking at an event in Holyoke last month.He will be speaking Saturday at a forum on prison reform in Amherst Saturday.

(Mark M. Murray / The Republican file)

AMHERST - On Saturday, a group of speakers including State Senate President Stanley Rosenberg will speak about criminal justice reform during a four-hour forum at the First Congregational Church.

At the program called "Inform to Reform: How you can End Mass Incarceration in Massachusetts," Rosenberg will speak on justice reinvestment to offer formerly incarcerated people job opportunities and state Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst, will speak on justice reform, according to a press release.

Rosenberg has talked about the need to provide treatment for substance abuse and mental health problems rather than incarcerating non-violent people with those problems.

Donald Perry of Montague and Donnell Wright of Springfield will speak from personal experience on the state's prison, parole, probation and the Criminal Offender Record Information systems.

Wright served 5 1/2 years for a 2004 arrest for drug possession and has talked about his difficulty finding work. Perry, the former Amherst soup kitchen coordinator, was arrested on charges related to break-ins into a house and car in Leverett in August of 2011. He was on parole at the time and it was revoked.

A jury acquitted him of the charges, but it took him two years and eight months to get out of prison.

Barbara Dougan, state project director for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, will speak on a bill to repeal mandatory prison sentences for drug offenses so that the punishment can fit the crime.

Jessica Morris, a senior fellow with the Roosevelt Institute and a senior at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, will speak about alternatives on pretrial incarceration, creating an improved justice system when it comes to bail.

The forum, sponsored by End Mass Incarceration Together, a task force of the Unitarian Universalist Mass Action Network, begins at 10 a.m. at the First Congregational Church, 165 Main St. Amherst. It is free and open to the public. People are asked to register online.