Given the recent fiscal restraints that our cities and towns face, it imperative that we present new and innovative ideas to help decrease costs and increase safety for our communities.  I am in full support of a regional lock up for all the cities and towns of Hampden County.

A regional lock up facility run by the Hampden County Sheriff's Department will save money for our cities and towns and keep police officers on the streets and in the neighborhoods rather than watching over detainees in their custody. This will further efforts to increase public safety.

Currently police departments throughout Hampden County rely on their own officers to watch individuals who have been arrested within the borders of their town.  This means that there is a valuable officer taken off street in order to watch just one detainee.  This officer is far more valuable on the streets, protecting thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses.  I believe that the brave men and women who are trained to safeguard our community should be out doing what they do best and leave the monitoring of arrestees to those with the training and expertise in detention.

Local police departments within Hampden County as well as the Massachusetts State Police should not be responsible for monitoring, feeding or providing medical care to those they apprehend.  A regional lock up, overseen by the Hampden County Sheriff's Department, is a logical and common sense approach to public safety and a win-win for the police departments of Hampden County and the citizens we all serve.

The Hampden County Sheriff's Department has the resources and the know-how to handle this job because this is what we are trained to do.  I know that this concept will help ensure that the residents in our cities and towns are safer because the police presence can be greater.  Regional lock ups have been very successful in other counties across the country and I believe it will make a positive impact on the public safety interest of Hampden County as well.