In the late 1920s, Massachusetts sociologist and prison reformer Howard Gill advanced the idea that correctional facilities must steadily move away from a strictly custodial model toward a human services orientation, one focused on rehabilitation for socio-economically disadvantaged people who have run afoul of the law.

Gill believed that the root problems of crime could be treated if incarcerated individuals were given access to education and vocational programs and provided opportunities to participate in such activities as farming, intra-mural sports and music.

Simply put, Gill maintained that exposing people to constructive behaviors while incarcerated would lead them to incorporate constructive behaviors into their lives after their return to their families and communities.

Although many critics of the day complained that such a “country club” approach merely coddled offenders, Edwin Sutherland, one of the foremost American criminologists of the 20th century, called Gill’s ideas “the most noteworthy achievement in the field of penology in the United States in the last generation.”

As we celebrate the first week of May as Correctional Professionals Appreciation Week, and commemorate the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction’s 40 years at our Rocky Hill Road location, I am enormously proud that the Hampshire Sheriff’s Office (HSO) has a long history, beginning with Sheriff John F. Boyle in the early 1960s and continuing through my predecessor Sheriff Robert J. Garvey to today, of embracing Gill’s vision and creating a culture of care at our facility, a culture that promotes kindness and recognizes the healing power of human decency.

I think Gill would be interested to learn that the HSO provides such programming as our Nurturing Fathers and Medication for Opioid Use Disorder programs, which are both showing clear signs of reducing recidivism. I think he would appreciate the fact that we offer creative writing courses and opportunities to sing with the Young at Heart Chorus and experience performances by the First Generation Ensemble of the Performance Project, so that the men in our care might learn to express themselves with creativity instead of criminality. I think he would be heartened that our culture of care extends across the county with the services we provide through our Criminal Justice Support Center, our Rock Hill Re-Entry Collaborative housing program for parolees, our Triad program for seniors and our Civil Process Division.

And I think Gill would recognize, as I do, that none of that would be possible without staff members of the highest quality.

I am entering my eighth year as sheriff of Hampshire County and I could not be more proud of our staff who, each and every day, regardless of what their individual job may be, all contribute to the healing of the individuals in our care and to the safety of the communities we serve.

Patrick J. Cahillane is sheriff of Hampshire County.