'Trying to run a lean jail': Sheriff Heroux making changes in his first months in office

DARTMOUTH — More than half a year into his six-year term, Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux is refocusing the role of the sheriff’s office, turning inward to address issues like inmate suicides rather than aiming to be a presence in the broader community.

“I’m just doing things differently,” he said. “I’m trying to run a jail focused on care in custody, control and rehabilitation.”

Heroux, formerly the mayor of Attleboro, was sworn into office in January. He succeeded longtime sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who held the position for 25 years before being unseated in a tight race by Heroux last year.

This week, Heroux announced a few changes in his office. For one, he updated his office’s mission statement.

“The Bristol County Sheriff’s Office is a public safety organization committed to care, custody, control, and rehabilitation of inmates. The Bristol County Sheriff’s Office strives to promote a work environment where employees feel valued and have a sense of purpose in their daily work, and will assist other public organizations when needed,” it now reads.

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Focus on inmate services, suicide prevention

Last Wednesday, Heroux’s office announced the hiring of a director of inmate services, a senior-level position tasked with overseeing “inmate reentry, rehabilitation and well-being." Jodi Hockert-Lotz, who previously has worked for the sheriff’s office and for the Massachusetts Department of Correction, will oversee measures within the jails like substance abuse treatment, vocational and educational programming, food and medical services.

She is the head of the sheriff’s newly created Inmate Services Division, part of what the sheriff’s office described in a press release as a “strategic plan and reorganization” aimed at “increasing services related to inmate housing, health care, employment and other aspects of rehabilitation.”

In recent months, Heroux has also released the results of a promised external report on inmate suicides in Bristol County jails and begun implementing recommendations included in the report. Hodgson drew criticism for the relatively high rate of suicides in Bristol County jails under his watch, specifically in New Bedford's historic Ash Street Jail, which Heroux has pledged to close. On Monday, he told The Herald News he hopes to close Ash Street in less than two years.

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Heroux focused on running "a lean jail"

Over the past seven months, Heroux has taken steps to streamline the work of the sheriff’s office. In February, he announced his office was donating its Mobile Command Center to the New Bedford Police Department. The command center, a large truck decked out with communications, lights and camera equipment, was purchased during Hodgson’s tenure. On Monday, he said his office will still coordinate with other law enforcement departments on tasks outside the jails like traffic control and search missions, but that sort of work would not be his office’s focus.

Earlier this summer, his office eliminated a program that distributed and maintained location-tracking wristbands for people at risk of going missing, like those with Alzheimer’s or Down syndrome. Heroux said the sheriff’s office was spending around $85,000 each year to have an employee visit the home of each program participant to replace the batteries in the wristbands every month, and that only around 50 people were members of the program. Families can choose other, newer technologies like Apple AirTags that offer a similar service, he said.

“It’s not the job of the jail to do this type of program,” he said. “That’s not a good use of resources.”

And Heroux announced on Monday that he will handle his own press relations, eliminating the position of public information officer in his office.

The sheriff tied the move to his broader mission of focusing on improving conditions for inmates and workers at his facilities and on rehabilitating inmates.

His predecessor garnered national media coverage at times for weighing in on major political debates; Hodgson offered to send inmates from Bristol County to the United States-Mexico border to help build a border wall planned by former President Donald Trump, and once reported his own church to authorities for distributing information about legal rights for immigrants.

“Tom (Hodgson) was in the news a lot more than I am. He sought it out. He was on national news on a regular basis,” Heroux said. “I’m trying to run a lean jail.”

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Bristol County Sheriff Heroux focusing on inmate service in first year