It’s been a useful exercise for me to try to keep track of all the new campaign filings via OCPF. One sees how many opportunities there are for challenging incumbents — forcing them to defend their records, and even extracting promises going forward. Sadly, on OCPF I see no challengers for any of the county sheriffs (am I looking in the right place?).
This is particularly regrettable in the case of Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, whose “law and order” façade excuses a lawless, cruel, and indeed deadly management of his jails. He infamously offered “his” inmates to help build Trump’s wall, apparently imagining the inmates to be his personal slaves, to be lent out at his pleasure. What’s more:
He’s taken away television sets, reduced meal portions and limited recreation options. He has offered to ship inmates down to the Mexican border to help build the president’s wall and has tried to charge them $5 a day while they serve their time. Recently, he revoked face-to-face visitation rights for most of the prisoners under his watch to limit contraband smuggling, drawing the condemnation of multiple prisoners’ rights groups.
But his record is much worse than a flippant political joke. His callousness, particularly in use of solitary confinement, has cost actual lives — 16 to suicide since 2006 — according to a report by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting:
Barbara Kice wants justice for her son, who hanged himself in 2015 in the Bristol County House of Correction. The jail, all by itself, accounts for more than a quarter of county inmate suicides statewide, and Kice thinks she knows why so many die: Jail officials do precious little to care for troubled inmates.
The Fall River mother filed a wrongful death suit late last month against Bristol County jail staff — and its tough-talking sheriff — claiming jail officials left him in solitary confinement the day after he had told a court doctor that he was going to commit suicide. He hanged himself with a bedsheet.
Hers is one of four current lawsuits against Hodgson.
And it’s not just inmates: WGBH’s Daniel Medwed says that between 2011-2015, 12 correctional officers in Massachusetts committed suicide. The dehumanization affects the jailers as well.
Exactly whom is this helping? In this era of re-examination of effective rather than repressive law enforcement; of greater mental health and addiction awareness, Sheriff Hodgson seems a retrograde, capricious dungeon keeper, not a responsible steward of public safety. “Old school” doesn’t excuse brutality and human rights abuse. Attention to mental health — access to treatment, addiction services (including antidotes), etc. — is a much greater protection to the public than creating more misery in jails.
And in the political sphere, let’s again take into account what political opportunities we have for reform, especially with three candidates for Suffolk DA, and a challenger to Marian Ryan in Middlesex. Compare to Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, who is setting new standards for progressive prosecution; for instance, calling for an actual accounting of the costs of incarceration for each case. I’d be interested to see what oversight AG Healey can provide for county jails.
Accountability is political, and the political moment is ripe for criminal justice reform. That means new blood with new ideas in public safety offices.
dunwichdem says
It’s a six-year term, so it won’t be up again until 2022. I believe all sheriff offices are the same.
Christopher says
Koutoujian in Middlesex already seems to be moving in the right direction.
hesterprynne says
Let’s talk warchests (another interesting item on the OCPF website). Hodgson is sitting on $235,000, the most of any of the sheriffs. He’s one of three sheriffs with a six-figure balance Plymouth County Sheriff McDonald and Worcester Sheriff Evangelidis (who, like Hodgson, are also Republicans) are the other two.
That’s more money in the bank than statewide officeholders Bill Galvin and Suzanne Bump have.
That is a daunting amount of dough, but the tide of public opinion is running against him for sure.
cc: Rick Saccone
jpdvyjpqj8dl says
Totally agree. A little date checking reveals that Hodgson had better things to do. Not only is he a sadistic martinet, he’s habitually carrying water for white supremacists, specifically those affiliated with the Tanton network — FAIR, CIS, and NumbersUSA.
A month before Ray’s suicide, the same NECIR reporters ran an article in the Globe asking, Why Is The Suicide Rate In Bristol County Jails So High? Scarcely a month later Ray was dead. Even if Hodgson was preoccupied by his busy talk show schedule, the Globe article should have sent a signal that things needed to change at his facilities.
But on June 1, 2017 Tom Hodgson was having brunch with the Mass Fiscal Alliance, a group that promotes anti-immigrant rhetoric like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, where Hodgson sits on the advisory board with its white supremacist founder, John Tanton. Nine days later Michael Ray was dead.
Two weeks after Ray’s death, on June 28th, Tom Hodgson was back selling anti-immigrant xenophobia at a far-right hate group event called “Hold Their Feet to the Fire.” Hodgson appeared with gay-basher Sandy Rios, xenophobe Dan Stein, conspiracy theorist Michelle Malkin, white supremacist Tom Roten, white supremacist congressman Steve King, Muslim-basher Robert Spencer, and real-life fascist and anti-semite Sebastian Gorka.
This is how the Bristol County Sheriff prioritizes his time.