Sheriff Tom Hodgson of Bristol County on the South Coast of the state of Massachusetts likes to justify any action he takes as being part of his job to keep the people of the county safe.
It sounds noble, but it is not true.
According to his job description his actual job, regardless what he may want it to be, is to run the county jail. That’s it.
He is supposed to make sure his inmates, a little over half of whom are pre-trial and may be acquitted of any and all charges, are held in humane conditions and making sure they get to and from the court if they are found guilty of a charge, to court and released if acquitted, and supervise his jails so they meet humanitarian conditions which means inmates when released will, perhaps, leave with a better attitude toward the law and law enforcement than the attitude they had before incarceration.
His job, and that of his deputies, does not include patrolling communities and making routine arrests. In order to impersonate local law enforcement he has to take time away from his real job, and if the conditions are inhumane enough to have people leave bitter and with an axe to grind concerning the rule of law and law enforcement, neither of these makes communities safe. And, if he likes to play ICE agent and terrorize the immigrant community by his speeches, radio appearances, impersonating local law enforcement, and releasing people back into the communities, he actually makes the communities less safe as people in the community may be afraid to report crimes or come forward as witnesses out of fear of their ending up punished for doing so.
He claims he keeps violent criminals off the street while not being able to present verification that the people in his jails are actually more violent than a D.U.I. or an unpaid parking ticket.
His schtick is to spread falsehoods about immigrants and “others” because he needs people to believe there is a threat from which he is necessary to save them from, while no such threat exists to the extent he claims. He needs to paint all immigrants as violent and threatening criminals to have his plan of impressing those who might promote him to a more prestigious position, and he relies on people assuming that everyone is a criminal who deserves to be incarcerated without their realizing that one of the reasons they are not in the jail themselves is because they had the money to pay the fine or make bail, or just haven’t been on a place at a time that makes them appear guilty of something.
The Bristol County House of Corrections leads the state in suicides, a number committed by people yet to be found guilty of anything or found guilty of a minor infraction, is second-place in recidivism, and receives non-stop complaints of abuse and neglect in his facilities, while Hodgson is spending a lot of time on talk radio, making appearances at right wing and white supremacist gatherings, and loving his time before the press cameras.
A Freedom of information request filed in May to find out how much time he spends away from his real job and finally answered in August showed that the Sheriff has spent a lot of time at the Hotel Omni Shoreham in Washington DC, the Willard Intercontinental in DC, the Grand Hyatt in DC, the Hamilton Crowne Plaza in DC, The Old Town Crowne Plaza in Alexandria Virginia, and others, but contained no documents listing the hundreds of talk show radio and television appearances he has made which have been reported on by local and national media, and which many locals can recall by his many radio appearances including substituting for a local talk radio host for the length of his show.
There were receipts for weeklong attendance at affairs in vacation locales like Mackinac Island and New Orleans to attend National Sheriff’s Association meetings that are not keeping us safe especially as the NSA is more of a right-wing advocacy group than professional association.
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Somehow his affiliation with them is supposed to keep the people of Bristol County safe?
He is associated with the far-right, anti-immigrant group FAIR, the Federation for American Immigrant Reform, which was started by John Tanton, a Michigan white supremacist, serving on its National Advisory Board along with John Tanton. FAIR has been very successful in shaping Trump’s immigration policy. FAIR’s President, Dan Stein, has publicly stated that non-white immigrants are challenging white supremacy with “competitive breeding.”
Hodgson has been involved with FAIR since 2011.
Hodgson joined the anti-government Constitutional Sheriffs Association in 2013, a group of sheriffs who believe they should only have to uphold those laws that they agree with, not all laws that exist.
This is what criminals do.
And who pays for all this non-job related travel and the time he attends meetings and spotlight,self promoting appearances away from his real job?
When directly asked who pays for the hotels and all related expenses, and the cost of travel, his spokesperson replied in writing that the taxpayers do.
That’s right.
If you do not approve of white supremacists, the oppression of Palestinians, and the mistreatment, misrepresentation, and demonizing of immigrants to have an “other” to use as a tool of self-promotion, if you are a taxpayer, like it or not, you are supporting these things by paying for the Sheriff of Bristol County’s involvement in them.