Monday, Mar. 05, 1990

The Sheriff Strikes Back

By Robert Ajemian

It was an act that brought a flush of pride to beleaguered lawmen across the country. In western Massachusetts, Michael Ashe, for 15 years sheriff of Hampden County, decided to challenge at last a prison system that had failed him. His overcrowded county jail, built in 1887 to hold 279 prisoners, bulged < with 450. Frustrated judges in Springfield, Mass., were forced to stay sentences for convicted criminals because there was simply no place to lock them up. A new phrase cropped up for the judicial impasse: convicted without correctional space. Last month 30 offenders walked free from Springfield courtrooms after being convicted of such serious crimes as drug possession and assault.

Last week Sheriff Ashe, an unassuming, gravel-voiced man with a reputation for using common sense, decided to strike back. If authorities were too immobilized to find more space for inmates, Ashe would do so himself. The sheriff had a place in mind: the huge Springfield Armory, six miles from the county lockup. It was, after all, an institution that stood for public peace.

With a posse of 17 armed deputies huddled inside a prison paddy wagon, Ashe pulled up at the front door of the armory. While the deputies sealed the exits, Ashe strode inside to claim the building from astonished National Guardsmen. "As of this moment," he declared to the military commanders on duty, "I'm seizing this building as a temporary correctional facility. We want to coexist with you here." His authority, Ashe explained, was the eminent power of a sheriff to maintain peace and order, now to his mind dangerously threatened. Meekly the military officers surrendered. One of them telephoned the state attorney general. "The sheriff is here in force," he reported.

Swiftly, Ashe commandeered one corner of the armory's huge drill hall. Jeeps and trucks were moved outside. Ten double-deck steel beds were erected on the concrete floor. Two television sets and a Ping-Pong table were set up. Guards were stationed around the clock. The cafeteria would be used for meals as well as receiving prison visitors. Now, his coup complete, Ashe transferred 15 minimum-security prisoners from Hampden jail. In one lightning raid, Ashe did something to reverse the system's paralysis. Law-enforcement officials cheered. Who knew what radical strategies might erupt elsewhere?

While Ashe's bold stroke promised only a temporary respite, some equally aggressive national action is needed to cope with the constantly increasing flow of new inmates. Since 1975, U.S. prisons have witnessed their greatest population explosion ever. Roughly 1 million offernders are incarcerated in jails and penitentiaries. The boom is fueled by tough mandatory-sentencing laws passed by 46 states and the Federal Government. But with more offenders now going to prison, facilities in 37 states are so overstuffed that judges have put a lid on the numbers that can be housed in existing lockups. Fourteen states have laws regulating which prisoners qualify for early release to make room for new arrivals.

The red brick Hampden jail is a microcosm of the nation's correctional crisis. Constructed when Grover Cleveland was President, it handles offenders with sentences of up to 30 months, many of them for violent crimes. For years Massachusetts prisons have been among the most overcrowded in the country, recently housing 15,000 inmates in space built for 10,000. New facilities lag far behind demand. In 1989 alone, the number of Massachusetts inmates increased by 820. Simply to stay even, the state would have to construct a new large facility every year, an impossible objective. Since 1983 Massachusetts has committed $1 billion to new prison construction.

Furthermore, new jails stir vast public resentment. "Everyone wants more prisons," says Ashe, "but always somewhere else." Four years ago, Massachusetts sited a new prison near the village of New Braintree (pop. 900). Townspeople rose up vehemently against the plan, but Governor Michael Dukakis stuck to his guns.

In Hampden County distraught officials decided in 1988 to adopt emergency release practices. Jailers like Michael Ashe were not enthusiastic. Criminals' walking free so early, Ashe believed, undermined prison management. "This is not the Vienna Choir Boys," he often complained to judges. Highly regarded for his frank and even manner, Ashe is a former social worker who has instituted reforms such as drug programs and data reporting at Hampden. Inside the prison, early release was mockingly referred to as "unearned good time," as opposed to the traditional time off earned for good behavior. Street criminals figured that the odds had shifted their way. Prison authorities strove to deny release for high-risk offenders, such as rapists and drug traffickers. Says Ashe: "We tried to cope with a distorted process."

As the number of inmates continued to grow, Ashe and his staff struggled to balance the flow of new arrivals and early releases. But by the end of 1989, balancing the count had become a daily terror. "A lot of mornings," says Ashe, "we'd let one out and take one in."

Finally, in the middle of February, the juggling act between judges and jail collapsed. Having run out of prisoners who qualified for early release, Ashe refused admission to a man found guilty of gun theft. The angry district judge retaliated by detaining two of Ashe's deputies. Though a space for the prisoner later opened up in the county jail, Ashe told himself he had to stand up. Whether state courts will uphold his coup remains to be seen. But for the moment, Ashe had seized the better option available: take over the armory, instead of watching even more dangerous criminals go free.