Ash Street Jail may be in its final days

The four-story tiered building has been endangered since the Bristol County sheriff called it “antiquated and a menace” 85 years ago. It has also been called a “medieval dungeon” and “Alcatraz without water.”

A quarter century ago, Amnesty International said conditions were “abominable” when law-and-order sheriff Thomas Hodgson removed televisions, closed the weight room, and defended double bunking in the tiny 6.1-by-8-foot cells. Hodgson declared that “jail should be jail.”

Today, attitudes have changed. Some inmates prefer the Ash Street Jail, which no longer double bunks, to the 1,100-bed Bristol County House of Correction in North Dartmouth, which has open dorm-style housing units.

“Most inmates like being [at Ash Street] ‚” says Sheriff Paul Heroux who took office in January 2023. “If I was an inmate, I’d probably want to be there because you don’t have to share a cell with anybody, and that’s something that they like … it’s quiet. Even the staff like being at Ash Street because it’s less chaotic, it’s less drama.”

Last April, an inmate disturbance in the Bristol County House of Correction resulted in $200,000 in damages.

Now, inmates claim they are gang members just to try and get their own single cells at Ash Street, Heroux says.

But Heroux wants to close the Ash Street Jail in 18 months and move inmates to the House of Correction after renovating dormitories into individual cells with locks and toilets. Operating Ash Street costs “literally millions per year,” he says.

“We have 50 correctional officers overseeing 100 inmates. So I would rather not spend the money on this big building,” he says in a telephone interview.

A recent Globe tour found the 226-inmate capacity Ash Street more than half empty. Most who are there are pretrial detainees awaiting trials or sentencing. The jail also serves as a lock-up for the approximately 15 Bristol County police departments that don’t have jail facilities.

Inside his jail cell at Ash Street, Tylar Johnathan relaxes on his bed and reads from a tablet, its blue light illuminating his face. Each cell has its own metal toilet and sink.

“Doing time here is not that hard,” he says looking up from his screen. “You’ve got your own cell and a tablet. You can make phone calls [which are monitored] and watch movies.”

Historically, however, the jail is a house of misery.

The last public hanging in Massachusetts took place here in 1894.

Daniel Robertson, a carpenter, was jailed for “drunkenness” and angry that his wife, Mary, refused to pay the $10 fine imposed for his transgression, according to Globe reports at the time. He vowed to kill her.

After his release, he went directly to a saloon, then to their home, where he stabbed her to death, according to Globe reports. He was hung on a wooden gallows, before a crowd, including a “considerable” number of women.

It did not go smoothly.

“The neck was not broken, death resulting from strangulation,” the Globe reported. “At the end of five minutes, there was a slight tremor of the toes, the last visible sign of life.”

Lizzie Borden, was housed here during her trial before she was acquitted of the 1892 hatchet murder slayings of her father and stepmother. She had an isolated cell behind a fortress-style door that remains part of the sheriff’s office. Stored in the attic is what is believed to be Borden’s iron bed. The springs on it are still bouncy.

Ash Street Jail remains a relic from another day. In the gymnasium, 13 blue credit-card phones are lined up on the wall, mostly unused. Inmates play cards, watch television, or use the chin-up bars. Outside on a cold winter day, a few inmates shoot hoops on a court surrounded by concertina wire.

Inside, inmate Joshua Clark, trims his beard with an electric shaver in the barbershop. He smiles when asked about doing time at Ash Street.

“It’s a lot more laid-back here,” he says.

In another cell, inmate William Perez studies college-level computer science exams. He wants to make something of himself.

And staff caseworkers help inmates get health care, housing, or a job, Heroux says.

But others think jail programs are lacking. “What are we learning here?” mutters one detainee at an anger management class. “Nothing.”

Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

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Stan Grossfeld can be reached at stanley.grossfeld@globe.com.