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NEW BEDFORD — Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux paused near the corner of Ash and Court streets with a question. He pointed up at a crack on the north face of the Ash Street Jail and Regional Lock-Up — a jagged gap, running alongside a second-floor window, that’s more than a yard long and wide enough in spots to swallow your hand.
“Why spend $3.5 million fixing that?” Heroux asked.
He didn’t mean that repairing the one crack would cost that much, of course, but that the fissure signaled deeper trouble with the antique red-brick structure. That crack is one of the lesser flaws recently spotted by an engineer, whose report has prompted Heroux to call for state legislative action to permanently close the 19th-century building.
The jail, a few blocks west of downtown, is not dangerous for current and continuing use, but it needs work, the engineer reported. Short-term repairs, in part to keep bricks from falling off the facade, could be done for about $22,000. Long-term repairs would cost between $3.3 million and $3.9 million, said the engineer, who was hired to study the building as part of an occupancy permit process.
OK for the “Band-Aid” fix, Heroux said, but — millions? Why? In a recent email to state legislators, he called the state-owned Ash Street Jail a “money pit.”
Better yet, he says: renovate the Jail and House of Correction in North Dartmouth to replace Ash Street, and consolidate operations there. This would save money in the long run, Heroux says, make more efficient use of staff, and resolve long-standing questions about the future of a building believed to be one of the oldest still-operating jails in the country.
Weighing the Ash Street question
The four-story building, standing in a residential neighborhood between Union and Court, opened in the 1880s. Inside are remnants of the original structure from the 1820s.
Critics of the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office have pointed to the dark old jail house — with its moldering window bars and frequently failing plumbing — as a symbol of an antiquated corrections approach under Heroux’s predecessor, Thomas M. Hodgson, who served in the position for 25 years.
Many of Heroux’s supporters in the 2022 election pressed their progressive candidate to promise to close the place. Heroux never did. He focused his campaign chiefly on reducing inmate suicides and expanding services to prepare inmates to re-enter the community, build stable lives, and stay out of trouble.
Heroux did say that if he won the office, he would explore the question and figure out the best options.
Heroux has yet to commission a formal study of what to do about Ash Street, and said he doesn’t think that’s necessary. Instead, since taking office in January 2023, Heroux has pursued the Ash Street question as he goes along, floating options, occasionally summoning a media gaggle and state lawmakers to hear the latest.
Heroux now says all the Ash Street inmates can be housed at Dartmouth without some of the renovations he had proposed before. This is possible, he said, because — at least for now — the Ash Street “inmate population has changed just ever so slightly. As few as 10 or 20 people can change that dynamic.”
The “regionals” complication
The complication lies in the second part of the name: Ash Street Jail and Regional Lock-Up.
Most of the people held there, about 80 or 90 on a typical day, are men in pre-trial detention. Ten or 20 men are serving sentences and have work assignments at Ash Street. Another 10 to 20 men and women are people who were just arrested and are waiting a few hours, perhaps a day or two, for their first court appearance.
Members of this last group are referred to as “regional” detainees.
These people can be brought to the jail from across the county by police in departments that do not have their own lockups. Of 20 cities and towns in the county, all but Attleboro use Ash Street as a lockup, Heroux said. State Police and federal agencies can also sometimes bring their detainees.
Bristol County collects fees for this service. In June, at $75 a day per detainee, the county collected $22,650 for holding 253 people for 302 days. The monthly numbers add up to more than $250,000 a year.
To provide this service, the North Dartmouth complex has to be equipped with a place where people can be booked, held first in a group, then assigned to individual cells. Separate accommodations have to be provided for men and women, and all “regional” detainees have to be separated from other inmates, Heroux said.
That demands a certain sort of space, or spaces.
The North Dartmouth complex on Faunce Corner Road includes the main building for men, the Women’s Center, and a so-called “modular” building put up in the late 1990s, meant to temporarily relieve crowding. Jail populations since then have fallen across Massachusetts, due in part to criminal justice reforms and the pandemic.
The Dartmouth complex can accommodate more than 1,000 people. It now has a daily population of about 600 at the main jail for men and the Women’s Center. The population is usually split about 60-40 between pre-trial detainees and people serving time for offenses punishable by sentences of two-and-a-half years or less.
Heroux figures that the complex as it is, without renovations, can probably accommodate everyone who is held at Ash Street — except for those “regional” detainees.
So what to do?
Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux and Bristol County Sheriff’s office Director of Support Services Christ Horta discuss proposed renovations to the Bristol County Jail and House of Correction that would accommodate regional lockup inmates if Ash Street were to close. Credit: Eleonora Bianchi / The New Bedford Light
Abandoned spaces, glimpses of a future?
The door to the “modular” building, off a fenced yard, opens into what Heroux reckons could be an answer. Inside there’s an abandoned institutional kitchen, now used to store food service supplies: cartons of paper cups, plastic forks, canned kidney beans, pumpkin puree.
This could be transformed into a space for booking and holding regional detainees before they’re assigned to a cell, Heroux said, as he conducted a tour.
Two spaces adjoining the old kitchen, one a former visiting room, another usually empty but used for certain training programs, could be transformed into separate spaces for individual detention cells for men and women, 30 cells in all.
In his email to state legislators in June, Heroux estimated that designing and completing this renovation would cost $3.75 million to $4.75 million. When pressed on that estimate in an interview, Heroux acknowledged that it could be higher, especially as construction costs keep rising, but he did not believe it would be more than $6 or $7 million.
In his email, he estimated that moving all operations to Dartmouth would save about $700,000 a year in Ash Street utilities and maintenance. The state, which owns the property, could realize $2 million to $5 million by selling the Ash Street Jail to a private developer, Heroux said in the email.
Heroux said in an interview that he wants to keep the building next to the jail, once the sheriff’s residence, that now houses the Civil Process Division. He would move civil processes to Dartmouth and use the space as an inmate “re-entry” center, Heroux said, with employment and counseling services on the first floor and temporary housing on the second.
Legislators agree, but …
Three legislators interviewed for this story agree it’s time to close Ash Street Jail. The questions involve the cost, how to pay for it, and what to do with the building after it’s closed.
The legislative session just ended, so nothing can happen until next year.
Rep. Chris Markey of Dartmouth said he imagines an appropriation could be included in the next budget or perhaps the next bond bill, but probably not before next spring.
He called closing Ash Street a “no-brainer … I have not heard a logical reason why not.”
Rep. Chris Hendricks of New Bedford, whose district adjoins the jail, wondered if the cost would really be as low as Heroux estimates. In any case, he did not imagine the money would be the obstacle, but he said, “we’re concerned about what’s going to go there once the jail leaves.”
Rep. Tony Cabral of New Bedford, whose district includes the jail, said he thinks Heroux’s cost estimates are “not even close” to what the renovation would cost.
He expressed the most concern, however, about what happens after the jail closes. He stressed that he does not want to “end up with a boarded-up building for years to come. That’s not going to do anything for the neighborhood or the city. We have had enough of those; we don’t need another one.”
He said he supports closing the jail, but only if there is a detailed plan for what to do with the building after that.
Standing in a yard between the old sheriff’s mansion and the jail, Heroux agreed. He just figures it’s not his job to figure that out.
He said he’s urged Cabral to bring together a group of public officials, perhaps private developers as well, to map the future of the Ash Street Jail site.
A museum? Apartment buildings? Perhaps, said Heroux, a former state legislator. While he’s county sheriff, though, he figures he should not be involved in these questions. He’s hoping to see this done while he is sheriff, during his first six-year term.
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
During Paul Heroux’s campaign for sheriff he consistently spoke about the conditions and issues he believed needed attention and fiscally sound procedures at the Bristol County correctional facilities. Having worked in the prison system prior to his tenures as a state representative and mayor, and having advanced studies applicable to managing a correctional system, his campaign speeches were not mere rhetoric but a framework for his intended improvements at the Bristol County House of Correction.
A firm advocate of transparency for elected officials Heroux has informed the public about the significant improvements he has made or are in process of development. Equally impressive he has shared the difficulties he has experienced trying to fulfill some of his campaign promise such as shuttering the Ash Street facility.
There appears to be no aspect of managing a correctional system that has escaped analysis by Heroux or his well chosen staff and contracted experts.
Sheriff Heroux understands that he has a responsibility to the incarcerated, the staff and the community and that effective rehabilitation is a win for all three constituencies.
Betty Ussach, Dartmouth,
Rent it to Hollywood, for prison movies.