Sheriff Proposes Committing People Living At Mass And Cass To A Re-Purposed Detention Center

September 26, 2021
WBUR
By Deb Becker

Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins wants to move people living in tents near “Mass and Cass” to a former detention center in the South Bay House of Correction.

The area, at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Boston’s South End, has become the epicenter of the region’s opioid epidemic.

The state is facing a lawsuit over using correctional facilities to house men who are civilly committed under Section 35, the state law that allows a judge to involuntarily commit a person to addiction treatment for up to 90 days. In 2016 the state stopped housing civilly committed women in jails and prisons in response to a lawsuit. They must be sent to inpatient treatment facilities instead.

Those who filed the current lawsuit involving men call Tompkins proposal “horrifying.”

“We have to put treatment resources into the hands of treatment agencies, not correctional agencies,” said Prisoners Legal Services of Massachusetts attorney Bonnie Tenneriello. “We can’t start filling empty prison beds with homeless people and those with substance use disorders. Where will that end?”