Barnstable County Sheriff candidates on inmate safety, ICE agreement, and other issues

WEST BARNSTABLE — Jail conditions, inmate safety, immigration agreements and the role of the sheriff took center stage at Wednesday's candidate forum between Barnstable County Sheriff hopefuls state Rep. Tim Whelan, R-Brewster, and Democrat Donna Buckley.

The forum, hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Cape Cod Area, the Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition, the Cape Cod Times and Cape Media Center, gave the candidates a chance to answer questions and discuss issues at the heart of the sheriff's race.

Rachael Devaney, a reporter for the Cape Cod Times, and Debra Dagwan of the Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition each asked the candidates questions, with Whelan and Buckley weighing in on topics ranging from diversity, equity and inclusion in the recruitment process to the department's Immigration Customs and Enforcement agreement.

More: Candidates seeking to represent First Barnstable District taking part in forum

Will the sheriff department's ICE contract continue?

The Barnstable County Sheriff's Office is the only department in the Commonwealth to have an active 287(g) agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Under the agreement, sheriff deputies trained by ICE are allowed to interrogate incarcerated people about their immigration status, arrest those in the jail for immigration violations, gather evidence used in processing people who could be eligible for deportation, hold them for referral to ICE for 48 hours and transport people to immigration detention facilities.

More: DA candidates for Cape & Islands meet at forum. Here's where they stand on the issues

The two candidates split on this issue.

If elected, Buckley vowed on Day One to reject the department's agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"It is not reflective of the role of the sheriff," she said of the agreement. "The role of the sheriff is correction, rehabilitation and treatment of inmates."

She said the current agreement has been used to target immigrants and diverts funding and resources the department could use elsewhere.

More midterm election: Candidate profiles, voter information and more.

Whelan disagreed and said he supports the agreement. If elected, he will continue to do so much like the current sheriff, James Cummings.

"The 287(g) is a valuable tool to keep the Cape and Islands safe," he said. "Sheriff Cummings and I share over three-quarters of a century of frontline law enforcement experience, and the lessons we learned during that time on how to keep our community safe is important."

Whelan contended the agreement doesn't divert an excessive amount of time and resources, rather, it is only a matter of running an inmate's name through another computer program akin to a warrant check.

"There is no constitutional crisis whatsoever, and this program keeps us safe by removing dangerous persons from our community who have no legal status in the first place," he said.

Plans to address inequality in services provided to male versus female inmates

Devaney, from the Times, asked the candidates how they planned to address the discrepancy between women and men in access to rehabilitation services in the jail.

Such unequal access, Devaney added, results in incarcerated women facing the choice of either going without these services or choosing to serve their sentence off-Cape away from their home and support systems.

"At the end of the day, COVID has really turned programming upside down," Whelan said of the facility's services. "In-person therapy and treatment has disappeared in favor of remote therapy, which is less effective."

Whelan said he will prioritize reinstating every pre-COVID service to its original in-person model and reinstating the Regional Substance Abuse Treatment Program for Incarcerated Women.

More: Cape & Islands District Attorney candidates: Here's what you should know

He added that, if elected, he will immediately assemble a transition task force to review current practices and services offered at the jail, hopefully improving conditions for women and men alike.

"The sheriff's office right now is widely recognized as a national leader in this area, but there is always room for improvement and ways we can do a better job," Whelan said.

Buckley pushed back on Whelan's proposal of reinstating pre-COVID programming like the Regional Substance Abuse Treatment Program for Incarcerated Women.

"It is not enough just to restore access to the RSAT program," she said. "Fundamentally, women deserve conditions of confinement that relate to the unique traumas that they face."

Women deserve the opportunity to earn "good time," Buckley said, so they too can receive time off of their sentences like their male counterparts.

"Men can work in the kitchen, women cannot. Men can clean the jail, women cannot. Men used to be able to go out on community work crews, women could not," she said. "All of those things created circumstances where men got time off their sentences, and women stayed in jail."

If elected, Buckley aims to divert existing resources in the department from expenses such as the sheriff's boat, which she criticized in August for its presence at a private wedding, to provide more resources for the women incarcerated in the facility.

Diversity and inclusion in staff recruitment, employment, inmate programming

When Dagwan asked about Buckley about her plans to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion is in the forefront of the department's recruitment, staffing and inmate programming, Buckley said during her time as general counsel at the correctional facility, she was frustrated with the administration's unwillingness to modernize its training practices.

"I had the ability to see what we had in place, and what we needed to move toward," she said. "We need to make sure that all of our staff received diversity, equity and inclusion training, and bias training, and sexual harassment training."

Buckley said she wants to keep the jail "faceless," that is, anyone who enters there, either as an inmate or an employee, receives the same opportunities and is eligible for the same outcomes as their peers.

More: Meet the candidates running to represent the 2nd Barnstable District

"The only deciding factor in how someone experiences their work at the jail, or their confinement, is what they are willing to put into it," she said.

Whelan said his experience serving in the state Legislature's special commission on equitable hiring for civil and non-civil departments and the State Police uniquely positions him to bring best practices to the process.

"We (the special commission) came up with a series of broad ideas on how we could improve equitable hiring and give job opportunities so the workforce looks as close as we can get to the community that it serves," he said.

One way the State Police have incorporated the ideas from the equitable hiring commission is through a cadet program, Whelan said, which he plans to bring to Barnstable County.

More: Female leadership makes waves at Mass. Maritime Academy

"The beauty of a cadet program is that it contributes as well to recruitment, which is a very big part of this," he said.

Whelan pledged to reach out to communities of color Cape-wide to give the opportunity to serve in the two- or three-year program that can provide long-term job opportunities in law enforcement down the road.

Whelan supports existing implicit bias training for law enforcement personnel, and pledged to provide equitable programming to the incarcerated population at the jail.

"No matter who they are, no matter what they look like," he said, "everyone is going to get the same opportunity because we owe that to them."

Incorporating minority contractors and vendors at the jail

When asked about plans to incorporate underrepresented contractors and vendors to do business with the Sheriff's Office by Dagwan, Whelan said he will follow the example set by Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, who have worked to address the gap in minority-owned business representation.

"The commonwealth has really made strides and improved our outreach to women-owned businesses, businesses owned by persons of color, to make sure that they are aware of and are notified of jobs that are available," he said.

Whelan said this will be a priority for his administration, and he will also seek to get businesses certified through the state so they can apply for open jobs with the Sheriff's Office.

Buckley said she envisions the department as becoming a part of the Barnstable County community as a whole, which includes involving businesses, nonprofits and other local organizations in department processes.

If elected, she said she will establish stakeholder meetings and roundtables with business owners across the Cape.

"We will have people at the table who will understand what we are looking to do at the jail, can help inform what resources are available, who are then able to bid or apply or suggest how we might go about securing those services," she said.

Since many incarcerated people at the jail are minorities, Buckley added, she wants to make sure the vendors brought into the jail are specialized to meet the needs of those incarcerated there.

How will the VOTES Act be implemented at the jail?

The recently adopted VOTES Act made pandemic-era voting accessibility measures, such as mail-in voting, permanent fixtures in Massachusetts.

A key component of the law is its jail-based reforms, that ensure people incarcerated for misdemeanor convictions or who are being held pre-trial can access ballot applications, information on voter eligibility and materials on the candidates and issues.

Buckley said one of the most important services provided by the jail is access to voting, which, in her eyes, isn't just providing an incarcerated person with a ballot.

What to know: State election is coming up. Everything you need about voting this fall

"We must make sure we make available to them the choices on the ballot, so people running for office have access to inmates to explain their positions, and inmates have the ability to gather information and stay informed on what each candidate stands for," she said.

Whelan said he supported the VOTES Act when it was introduced in the Statehouse and pledged to follow the law to ensure voting access for inmates.

"If I am elected sheriff, I will guarantee I will follow every letter of that law, that prisoners are getting access exactly as it describes," he said.

Work and Family Mobility Act: drivers license access for undocumented immigrants

The Work and Family Mobility Act, passed in June, gives qualified undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts the opportunity to apply for a drivers license.

Whelan said he voted against it in the Statehouse and continues to be against the law today, citing concerns for the potential for identity fraud and a decrease in public safety.

"The gold standard of identification has always been a drivers license," he said. "We are going to have people who are able to come to the United States and assume a new identity, and leave whatever issues they had in their home country behind."

Buckley said she supports the Work and Family Mobility Act and will stand behind it when it goes before voters as Question 4 on the Nov. 8 ballot.

"The reality is we have people who are driving who do not have licenses," she said. "This levels the playing field, it gives people identification while operating a vehicle, they get insurance, and if there is a motor vehicle accident, it is treated as if both parties are insured. It creates a greater level of safety for all."

Barnstable County's higher-than-average recidivism rates

Concerning Barnstable County's higher-than-average recidivism rates, Buckley pointed to the department's lack of data as a roadblock to identifying what is working and what isn't within the jail.

"One of the things that will help to cut down on recidivism is using evidence-based, data-driven programs and policies when we are providing correction, rehabilitation and treatment," she said.

She sees the county's higher recidivism rates as a sign that the community is not safe — people are being released from jail without the resources to rebuild their lives post-incarceration.

More: Race to represent the Cape & Islands in Congress: What to know about the candidates

Buckley said from her point of view, addressing recidivism takes many different forms: offering programs, education, medication-assisted treatment, addiction counseling, special education services and job training for inmates are strong first steps to preventing someone from reoffending.

"It can be as simple as bringing AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] meetings back to the jail, or making sure our community college is a partner with us offering education programs that begin while people are incarcerated," she said. "I call it an individual correction plan."

Whelan said he agreed with Buckley's points about programming.

"We need to step up our game," he said, "but there are a couple of realities we need to look at here."

Whelan emphasized COVID's effect on the ability to provide inmate programming, moving from in-person programs to remote.

Statistically, Whelan said, programming is also feeling an effect from the 2018 criminal justice reform bill that has lessened the prison population in Barnstable County.

"Based upon the sentencing of the courts under the reform guidelines, those prisoners coming inside tend to have much more of a violent tendency," he said. "It's not so much the person who made a mistake as it is someone who has much deeper things going on that we need to work harder to help."

The key to helping such individuals is improving the programming the  Sheriff's Office already offers as well as addressing mental health resources for inmates, Whelan said.

Sheriff transparency regarding inmate deaths

This summer, three inmates housed at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility died, two of which have been classified as suicides. This information became available to the public after several media outlets reported it rather than directly from the Sheriff's Office.

As someone with a 26-year career in law enforcement, Whelan said he has seen firsthand the effect suicide has on the community, and said suicide and mental health concerns are not problems facing just the Barnstable County Correctional Facility.

"Suicide, like mental health, is an underrated epidemic in our commonwealth at large," he said. "Unfortunately, too many in our commonwealth are getting the mental health care they need when they become involved in the criminal justice system."

More: Exclusive: Three people die in 8 weeks at Barnstable County jail. Here's what we know

On arrival at the correctional facility, every person is screened for a history of suicidal thoughts and any current suicidal ideation, Whelan said.

Depending on the results, incarcerated people can be placed on direct observation, with a guard checking every 15 minutes. All inmates are checked on every 30 minutes, however, he added.

Whelan said if elected, he will review the existing policies and look to other communities coupled with local and national organizations for ideas on best practices to improve the facility's suicide protocols.

"Staff building communication and relationships with incarcerated people is crucial," he said. "I want to provide a daily trainer to the staff that will include suicide prevention and training. I want to create a culture of suicide prevention in the facility, and encourage communication on all levels."

Buckley said what is most disappointing about the deaths at the jail is the lack of communication on the part of the Sheriff's Office.

"We heard about them (the deaths) from a newspaper report well after they occurred," she said. "We need a sheriff's office we can trust. When we take away someone's liberty, our sheriff has a sacred responsibility to make sure they are safe."

Buckley advocated for the department to move away from using a private vendor for medical and mental health services, who in this case, she said, determined the two people who died by suicide were not at risk.

"We cannot rely on a private vendor," she said. "We need the level of accountability and expertise that can only come when we are the employer."

You can watch the Barnstable County Sheriff and Cape and Islands District Attorney candidate forums on the Cape Media Center's YouTube channel starting the week of Oct. 17.

Gain access to premium Cape Cod Times content by subscribing. 

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Barnstable County sheriff race: Candidates' thoughts on the issues