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The Suffolk County Sheriff's Department Community Corrections Division
provides a range of intermediate sanctions and programs that enables
the Department to supervise and assist carefully selected inmates
during transition from the House of Correction into the community
under conditional pre-release status. Only those inmates who present
a
minimum level of risk to the community—based on their offense,
criminal history, and institutional behavior—and who are eligible
by state statue and institutional policy can be classified to community
corrections.
Community corrections participants must follow a rigid post-release
plan including reporting regularly to a community corrections center,
being subject to substance use screens, improving their education
and employment skills, and staying out of trouble. Community corrections
sentences demand much from the offender. Failure to satisfy the requirements
of the sentence will have swift consequences including reincarceration.
Staff include program coordinators and administrative
professionals, uniformed officers who have been specially trained
in community corrections, and contract vendors who provide a variety
of services ranging from education and job assistance to drug testing.
The staff also includes members from other collaborating agencies.
The Division develops community partnerships with other law enforcement
agencies, government agencies and private and non-profit service
providers to develop rigorous programmatic and security protocols
to ensure that inmates released to community corrections are held
accountable for their behavior and treatment.
The Sheriff's Department has opened several program centers and
is working on various initiatives that provide corrections officials
with the flexibility needed to be successful in integrating offenders
back into society. These include:
- The Suffolk County Community Corrections Center, 33 Bradston
Street, has performed more than 25,000 drug/alcohol tests and provided
services to offenders who were re-entering society. Adcare
Criminal Justice Services provides substance abuse treatment programming
based on a 12-step philosophy, cognitive-behavioral techniques
and therapeutic community resocialization principle. Bunker Hill
Community College provides
an innovative educational curriculum
for the Center.
- The Suffolk County Women's Resource Center in Jamaica
Plain (the center is moving to the new courthouse in Pemberton
Square on August 1, 2003) provides services that are tailored to
the specific needs of women, and
focuses on employment, drug treatment and their role as parents.
A comprehensive computer lab anchors a solid educational program.
Professional case managers closely monitor offenders. The center
can serve 50 offenders.
- McGrath House for women and Brooke House for
men provides halfway house services for the Department's
returning offenders. Inmates released to these facilities are closely
supervised as they make their return to the community. Brooke House
is the site for an intensive federally funded reintegration program
that is based on a comprehensive case conference system where offenders
receive intensive services and interventions as they make their
way back into society.
- The Offender
Re-entry Program (ORP) is a federally funded three-year
program that provides intense pre- and post-release services to
offenders. The ORP, which is being implemented in conjunction with
the Hampden County Sheriff's Department, gives offenders strong
discharge planning services as well as the support needed to deal
with negative issues, to find and hold a good job, and to become
productive members of society.
- The Responsible Fatherhood Initiative of the Massachusetts Department
of Revenue's Child Support Division helps inmate fathers understand
their childcare responsibilities and also assists them in finding
meaningful employment post-release.
- The Boston Re-Entry Program is a joint effort with the Boston
Police Department and community partners that gives returning inmates
an opportunity to make positive choices about their future behavior
while holding them responsible for their behavior.
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