ACLU releases Know Your Sheriff campaign survey results. Why Hodgson did not participate.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts Tuesday released its survey of sheriff candidates ahead of the September primaries as part of its Know Your Sheriff Campaign.
The questionnaire consisted of 24 queries, 12 narrative-based and 12 yes and no questions. The questions focused on issues of immigration, public health, recidivism, and more.
All three Democratic candidates standing in the Sept. 6 primary responded to the survey.
Nicholas Bernier made reducing Bristol County recidivism rates through mental health and substance programs a top priority.
"Offenders that leave the Bristol County jail system without drug and mental health treatment are simply more likely to reoffend than those that receive meaningful treatment while incarcerated," he said. "This must be the primary contribution to public safety of the next Bristol County sheriff."
Recidivism rates
According to a 2020 report on the three-year recidivism rate for the 2015 release cohort from the Massachusetts Department of Correction, Bristol County had a 40% recidivism rate on 235 releases.
The only county with higher recidivism was Franklin County with 53%, which only released 15 inmates that year.
He also said he would continue Sheriff Thomas Hodgson's work program which he said he would continue if elected.
Bernier said that increasing the corrections staff will be a top priority in order to avoid officer burnout, shutting down the Ash Street Jail and converting the former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Center at the Bristol County House of Corrections in Dartmouth into a regional lockup and intake facility.
Addressing mental health
For former Somerset Chief of Police George McNeil, mental health also played a critical role in the outcomes for those in BCSO custody once released.
"Re-entry programs must address mental health issues and provide mentoring,
whilst offering educational opportunities and job training," he said. "As I said before, the
mental health and addiction aspects are a priority for successful re-entry but so is
vocational/educational training.
"The houses of correction can deliver services to detainees through various programs, much of which is not done now," he continued. "The overall goal of these programs is to make the transition back into modern life as easy as possible, providing as many opportunities as are available."
McNeil said that reducing recidivism through these programs will be a top priority for him.
Risk needs assessment
Current Attleboro Mayor Paul Heroux said the best way to help those released reintegrate into society is to be proactive once they enter the custody of the sheriff's office.
"The day someone is admitted to jail, we give a risk needs assessment," he said. "We then create a discharge plan based on those risks and needs focusing on the three
pillars of prisoner reentry."
These include ensuring the person has housing upon release, access to substance abuse treatment programs and other healthcare, and job placement or guidance in continuing education started while in custody.
He said that his top priorities would be increasing transparency and ensuring that services and programs are in place in the hopes that inmates are prepared to re-enter society upon release.
Immigration enforcement
All three Democratic candidates said that immigration enforcement should not fall under the purview of the sheriff's office.
Hodgson, a Republican who has been the Sheriff of Bristol County since 1997, rose to national prominence due to his hardline conservatism when it comes to immigration policy.
In 2017, Hodgson garnered national headlines when he offered to send immigrant detainees to the border with Mexico to help build the former president's proposed border wall.
The sheriff made headlines again in 2019 when a public records request revealed emails with Stephen Miller, then the president's chief of staff.
In them, he told Miller that St. Julie Biliart's in Dartmouth – Hodgson's own parish – was distributing flyers in various languages informing immigrants of their legal rights and on offering assistance to people who may be undocumented.
"I thought it was appropriate to make Washington aware when these things were happening," Hodgson said at the time. "If these kinds of things are going on in churches, then we should be aware of it."
In December 2020, the Mass. Office of the Attorney General found that Hodgson violated the civil rights of immigrant detainees during a violent incident at the Bristol County House of Correction in May 2020.
As a result, the Department of Homeland Security - under whose auspices ICE falls - ended its contract with the prison to hold immigrant detainees in May 2021.
Hodgson Declines Participation
A spokesman for the Bristol County Sheriff's Office said that Hodgson will not be submitting responses to the survey.
"Sheriff Hodgson does not participate in the ACLU’s political games," Jon Darling told The Standard-Times by email. "The ACLU has done nothing but attack him and the dedicated law enforcement professionals of the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office time and time again."
In the initial report by the ACLU announcing the campaign, it found that Bristol County was the exception when it came to knowing their county sheriff.
While statewide only 17% of registered voters were able to name their county sheriff, that number was 51% in Bristol County according to the ACLU.
Darling touted the office's "back-to-back perfect 100% scores" on accreditation inspections from the American Correctional Association.
The association's website lists the Dartmouth Correctional Complex - which houses the Bristol County House of Correction and Jail and Bristol County Sheriff's Office Women's Center as accredited.
The Ash Street Jail in New Bedford is not included on their accreditation list.
"The residents of Bristol County don’t need a political activist organization like the ACLU to introduce them to their Sheriff," he said. "As evidenced by the initial data released by the ACLU upon launching this project, the people of Bristol County overwhelmingly already know their Sheriff."
Contact Kevin G. Andrade at kandrade@s-t.com and follow him on Twitter: @KevinGAndrade. Support local journalism and subscribe to the Standard-Times today!
This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: ACLU's Know Your Sheriff campaign releases survey responses
