Sheriff posts prisoner ‘alert’ tool after judge releases ICE detainees
Bristol County sheriff posts prisoner ‘alert’ tool after judge releases ICE detainees from his custody
By Ben Berke
The Enterprise
Posted at 11:16 AMUpdated at 11:22 AM
43 detainees have been released into house arrest in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the county’s jails. In response, Sheriff Thomas Hodgson has launched an online tool to notify residents of any criminal charges or convictions against the released detainees.
DARTMOUTH – Forty-three detainees held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been released into house arrest from Bristol County’s jails as of Tuesday morning, marking one of the most sweeping depopulation efforts in carceral complexes across the state.
ICE agreed to re-assign at least six detainees into house arrest. The rest were released by the order of U.S. District Court Judge William Young in response to a federal lawsuit alleging that crowded conditions in the jail could lead to massive rates of infection and death among inmates and staff alike. The jail has now released about one-third of its immigration detainees, according to numbers provided by a spokesperson for the Bristol County sheriff.
Meanwhile, another 10 of Bristol County’s criminal detainees have been temporarily released in response to a similar lawsuit recently considered by the state’s highest court, which to date has released a much smaller fraction of the complex’s population of criminal convicts and pre-trial detainees, who number around 715, according to the sheriff’s spokesperson.
The releases have drawn criticism from both sides of a longstanding criminal justice debate between local inmate advocates and the southeastern county’s well-known sheriff, Thomas Hodgson.
Bristol County for Correctional Justice, the inmate advocacy group, said the release of criminal detainees “is moving at a much slower pace than necessary to save lives.”
“We don’t think that releasing two a day in our county is what the court envisioned,” said the group’s Joe Quigley. “To our minds, this is neither expeditious, nor what this crisis requires. We are calling on District Attorney Quinn to move more in concert with the courts objectives to protect the lives of incarcerated people, as well as Department of Corrections employees and the general public.”
Meanwhile, Sheriff Hodgson, who manages Bristol County’s jails, responded to the federal court’s release of ICE detainees with a public information tool he’s called the “Prisoner Release Alert System.”
The system, an ongoing series of posts to Facebook and the sheriff’s website, list the groups of criminal charges and convictions against individual immigration detainees, though the detainees’ names are not shared, Hodgson said, because of laws governing the way criminal records are publicized in Massachusetts.
Common entries on the list include larceny, drug trafficking and operating under the influence, though Hodgson said at least one released detainee had been charged with or convicted of rape. Other detainees have no convictions or criminal charges.
“Some of them also had final removal orders from an immigration judge to be deported to their country of origin, but are instead free to roam the neighborhoods of our communities,” Hodgson said, adding that he devised the alert system “to help protect the people of Bristol County from potential victimization.”
The alerts do not distinguish between criminal charges, which have not been tried in court, and convictions.
Rafael Pizarro, a spokesman for Bristol County Correctional Justice, said the list will do little to protect Bristol County residents.
“It’s very irresponsible to sow fear in an already panicked population while doing very little to stop or slow a known killer, COVID-19,” he said.
No detainees in Bristol County’s jails have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Tuesday, though at least four staff members have.
Two were healthcare professionals and two were correctional officers. Most recently, a mental health clinician tested positive on Wed., April 8 and received the results over the weekend after returning to the facility the following Thursday and Friday.
Jonathan Darling, a spokesman for the sheriff, said the clinician “had extremely limited contact with staff and inmates.”
“All BCSO staffers inside the correctional facilities are wearing ppe equipment at all times, and mental health consultations with inmates are being done between a plexiglass partition.”
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