SHERIFF HODGSON TAKES STATE FUNDS TO PROMOTE HIMSELF

As I have written before, we in Bristol County have a sheriff, Thomas Hodgson, who is intent on making a name for himself with conservatives nation-wide and the Trump administration, and is willing to misuse the inmates of the Bristol County Jail to do it.

But in his eagerness to achieve his goal, the man who condemns immigrants as lawbreakers, and who claims sanctuary cities will encourage undocumented people to come to those cities to freely commit crimes, a claim continually debunked in the real world with statistics and facts, but which has life among those who want the world to be as they want it as opposed the way it is, has been hiding behind his badge and his appeals to our lesser natures ignoring state law in order to promote himself.

His signature piece of public relation is his offer to Trump to use Bristol county jail inmates to help build the Wall, but It is more complicated to send inmates to the border than just to say he wants to do it.

The sheriff has deputized some of his county men to do the work of ICE, which expands his and their duties beyond the law because in Massachusetts, unlike some Western and Southern states their primary duty of the county sheriffs is to oversee corrections at facilities within their counties. They guard county jails and get inmates to and from their court appearances.

They have no power or responsibility outside the prison system.

Sheriff Hodgson likes to claim more powers than he actually has and speaks in vague generalities about enforcing laws.

The plan to build the wall will remove inmates from their community to which they should re entered rehabilitated and perhaps trained for jobs.

The sheriff also likes to play fast and loose with the facts and with history to appear that this all building dream of his has been established precedent by inmates having been sent to help during the days after Katina. But his story falls flat when his claim of county jail involvement was actually volunteer county officers who chose to do that while no inmates were used in Katrina as the sheriff claims.

This law and order champion, Hodgson, misrepresents the facts to support hi agenda.

There are two bills before the Massachusetts legislature That should be passed and need the support to be.

One is H 3034 which states that inmates cannot work in out of state program, but must work within their communities, their counties. The federal government cannot require them to either.

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Out of state work teams would only be allowed in the case of natural disasters and on a voluntary basis with authorization of the governor with no routine ongoing work.

HB 3033 State funds cannot be used for out of state projects which would eliminate local police departments and local resources being used to do the work of ICE. Such federal programs would have to rely on federal funds as Bay State Taxpayers need goods and services in the state that are supported with their tax dollars.

Considering that Massachusetts is one the states that gets less than a dollar for each tax dollar that goes to the federal government while other states (oddly the Red ones) get more than a dollar for each one paid in, and they rely more on the federal coffers for programs like infrastructure and public assistance for the needy citizens, Massachusetts pays enough, and should not be require to spend more in the form supporting niche federal programs with money that should remain local.

If the Feds want state and local police to do the work of ICE, they should pay the locals to do it.

If local police are assigned for training that is out of state, the Feds have to pay.

Immigration is not a county sheriffs’ area, so they have opinions but no training.

The Bristol County sheriff complicated his own situation and showed his lack of willingness to follow the established law when it took a law suit from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice because he violated the state’s public records law.

They had originally sought to obtain public records about Hodgson’s participation in a program that will allow his staff to identify and detain inmates who may have entered the country illegally after the sheriff announced in January that his office would join a controversial immigration enforcement program, but for close to four months the originally request went ignored in a gross violation of state law.

However, during the first week of May, 2017, in response to the suit, Sheriff Hodgson apologized, saying his office has been overwhelmed with public records requests.

Many people may recognize the sheriff because during the time he had been too busy to follow the law when it came to public records, he as making multiple local and national appearances on television explaining his inmate plan and his objections to Sanctuary Cities.

He was willfully negligent in his duties and in the process ignored the law so that he could travel the country claiming that undocumented people ignored the law, thereby promoting his image a tough law and order guy who thinks he should be able to, and expects people will accept he should  be able to ignore the laws he finds inconvenient to himself, his image, and his self-promoting message.