The race pits two-term incumbent Tom Bowler against Chief Probation Officer of the Southern Berkshire District Court Alf Barbalunga. The hard-fought, often personal campaign to secure the next six years in the sheriff’s seat has provided much of the fireworks in the countywide election with just weeks until the primary.
One issue raised at the debate was around how to provide care for inmates with substance misuse issues. Bowler, once a skeptic of the practice, said he has ultimately embraced medication-assisted treatment.
“It's no secret that several years ago I had changed my mind," said the sheriff. "Or several years ago, this past few years, we have changed our mind from the medication-assisted treatment to, from the so-called abstinence, keeping in mind that for several years, we've always given medications-assisted treatment. Whenever somebody came in and had a substance use disorder, there was no cold turkey, so to speak, treatment. We always medicated those individuals to curb their cravings and their urges. And we have a fully qualified medical staff that handle these. As time went on, we educated ourselves. We also, there was a federal case law that came down and said we were mandated to provide it, and that's exactly what we did. It changed the minds in several of the sheriffs across the Commonwealth. I think Massachusetts is on the cutting edge. There's a lot of states that don't do it. But we provide it now. And the bottom line is, we provide it, but it's up to the individual whether they receive it or want to use it.”
“This wasn't some educational journey and some medical expertise that he came around," said Barbalunga. "These were federal lawsuits that mandated it, and people need to understand on medically assisted treatment, the acronym's MAT, there's different tools in this toolbox about how to treat inmates and detainees when they're incarcerated. And Tom and his staff were using the bare minimum against medical advice from physicians that were inside. So again, technically, he did come around. It was due to a statutory provision and also never coming through using the full options at his disposal. And in fact, some of the options, I believe one of them was because it was free. There was a pharmaceutical company donating to the correctional facilities. And at the end of the day, he was somewhere between ninth and 14th from the state when he came on line with MAT, that's a fact.”
“Seven sheriffs took the pilot program after the Franklin County sheriff was the first one to get the grant," Bowler rebutted. "Once the mandate came out, we were the next in line. We were the first in line to go through the rigorous process of getting the federal license through [the Massachusetts Department of Public Health] to get the methadone administered. It's amazing how someone who doesn't even work at our facility knows so much about it and how much we do with our medically-assisted treatment. We use it, it's there for, it's an opportunity for them to use it. We educate them on it. But again, keep in mind, we have people that come in and don't use it, and we have people come in that do use it.”
“It's not really amazing how I know," said Barbalunga. "We have a number of people that tell us about it that were currently employed or were previously employed, including medical staff, and they were absolutely mortified on the direction you and your leadership team took. That's a fact. You can never prove causation with deaths coming outbound, but we can go through those years that you were the sheriff and we can tell you how many people died of opioid overdose in Berkshire County that were inmates. We can't ever connect it, so we won't say that. But none of this is amazing. You had staff that told you what to do, you decided not to do it, and that's where we find ourselves at.”
Barbalunga was asked to specify shortcomings in the House of Corrections he would work to address.
“Budgetary fiscal stewardship," he said. "We have a pretty robust budget. We talked at our last debate, somewhere between $19 and $23 million depending on what numbers you're taking. And our team definitely would spend that money in a different way. When it comes down to at the end of the day, it's strictly, it's about spending money on the inmates' rehabilitation. That's what it gets down to. And we would definitely bypass some of the other expenditures. So that's the first thing, fiscal look, come with some audits for sure. Secondly, we would re-empower the men and women that work there, primarily the rank and file. These are people that are bypassed for promotions all the time, and there's a number of reasons why. Thirdly, we would definitely take a deep dive on a cultural diversity inclusiveness. That office is not representative of the community, or 32 communities. It's not representative of the rank and file employees there, and it's a systemic failure there and that's something we will repair.”
“I totally disagree when he says it's a systemic failure across the community," said Bowler. "We have forged so many community relationships. It's amazing the number of people or agencies in Berkshire County who are knocking at our door to be our partners, to be partners with us. And that doesn't come lightly. It comes from hard work from the sea of blue that you see in this background here. It's those individuals there that you're bashing on a continual basis. These are the individuals that have brought us to three major accreditation from major agencies in corrections: The [American Correctional Association], the [National Commission on Correctional Health Care], which I know you don't know what that is, and the [Prison Rape Elimination Act]. These are the individuals who work day in and day out, dedicate their life, share the same vision and passion as I do to be a community member and create a strong, healthy, and safe community not only on the inside of our walls, because those people are getting out, but it's on the outside as well.”
You can hear the full debate here:
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