As your Franklin County sheriff, I want to speak directly to you about what the Sheriff’s Office does, what our responsibilities are, and our commitment to accountability, transparency, and progress.
The Sheriff’s Office provides much more than basic custody and security. We play a critical role in public safety and community well-being. We operate two nationally recognized treatment units for both men and women. Our programs have changed lives and improved outcomes not only for those in our care, but for the broader community they return to. We want the people in our programs to reenter the community as stronger, productive individuals. We were among the first sheriff’s offices nationally to implement medication-assisted treatment, addressing substance abuse disorders with evidence-based practices.
We are responsible for delivering medical and mental health services to the individuals in our community. The financial burden of this care is significant and continues to grow, as mental health needs and complex medical conditions increase nationwide. These are essential services, and they are handled with professionalism and compassion every day. We employ licensed clinicians and medical personnel. Our goal is to provide the best possible medical and mental health care in the most rural, poorest county in the state. We believe our community deserves nothing less.
Our daily census hovers around 176 men and women. Our annual admissions in 2025 totaled 1,100, with 1,300 releases, all of whom had medical assessments, clinical assessments, medication needs, and access to immediate medical services. We have 24/7 nursing staff coverage.
From the moment individuals enter our facility, whether pre-trial or sentenced, they are connected with reentry staff members who begin working on three goals: stabilization, rehabilitation and reintegration. This proactive approach reduces recidivism and strengthens public safety in a lasting way. Reentry support is widely understood as a necessity for individuals returning to the community. Our reentry program uses a public health approach through pre-release reentry planning, post-release case management, community outreach, and our downtown Reentry Center, which provides drop-in, low-threshold services that prevent future interactions with law enforcement. We prove daily that reentry work is truly prevention work.
Through the stories of women engaged in our reentry program, we identified that human trafficking often goes unnoticed in our rural region. Services to address this issue had never been established. We created a task force on human trafficking, not only to shine a light on this issue and educate the community, but also, through the outreach efforts of our women’s reentry workers, we have created an immediate response network to support victims who would otherwise have nowhere else to turn.
We have noticed a shift in the age demographics of our residents over the past two years, and we rapidly designed and implemented our new Emerging Adult Program. Through interventions focused on civic engagement and restorative justice, we support young people (under the age of 26) in becoming vibrant members of their communities. Through our classification process, we expedite emerging adults towards pre-release employment opportunities, ensuring that they participate in our vocational offerings along the way. Through partnerships with local colleges and tech schools, we ensure a seamless transition to continued education.
Beyond traditional sheriff’s office responsibilities, our Sheriff’s Office serves as an essential partner in maintaining the safety, stability and well-being of our county. Our personnel actively assist in supporting local police departments, helping to temporarily fill resource gaps and ensure consistent public safety coverage. Many of our local police departments have difficulty maintaining staffing for their departments. It takes 26 weeks for enrollees to complete full police academy training. It’s crucial that the Sheriff’s Office assists. We have academy-trained personnel who have assisted local departments (Greenfield, Montague and Erving) over the past year. I want our office to support departments in need. This collaboration is especially vital for smaller or under-resourced departments that rely on our support to meet community needs.
We are a 24/7 congregate care facility. Since taking office in 2025, I have made fiscal responsibility a top priority. I reduced the department’s budget by $837,000 through careful evaluation of operations. We recently reduced an additional $66,000 in overtime costs. We have had to deal with the chronic underfunding of critical support services that impact our individual residents and community at large.
The Sheriff’s Office of today is focused on building a stronger, more accountable, and more effective office for the people we serve. That is the standard we are working to meet every day, and that is what is important to me.
On Nov. 3, I hope you will support my continued work as your sheriff.
Lori Streeter is the Sheriff of the Franklin County Jail and House of Correction. She began her career as a correctional officer in 1982, and rose in the ranks under the administration of three sheriffs.