Overview
Established in 1983, the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association (MSA) represents the Commonwealth’s 14 county sheriffs’ offices. MSA serves as a collaborative body that advocates for legislation regarding the care, custody, and rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals. It also promotes public health and safety within correctional facilities.
MSA plays a key role in collecting and reporting data from the sheriffs’ offices related to incarceration, recidivism, and inmate populations. This information is made publicly available and is submitted to legislative bodies and state agencies as required by applicable state laws and MSA’s state budget line item. In addition, MSA is responsible for standardizing correctional services and programming across sheriffs’ offices and for providing technical assistance and training. These efforts support consistency in service delivery and best-practice implementation statewide.
MSA is governed by a president and vice president, who are both elected by the sheriffs to serve two-year terms. MSA’s staff members include an executive director, a deputy director, a communications director, a director of data and research analytics, a director of government affairs, and a director of training.
Acting as a liaison between the sheriffs’ offices and the state legislature, other government agencies, and strategic partners, MSA provides advisory and support services. It communicates changes in laws, policies, and regulations to ensure compliance and alignment with legislative expectations. However, MSA holds no regulatory authority over the sheriffs’ offices, each of which is independently managed by an elected sheriff.
According to its website,
The MSA facilitates cooperative and collaborative relationships among the Sheriffs for the purpose of developing standardized training, reporting, providing governance over shared projects, discussing operational best practices, and providing research and data on matters of mutual interest and concern.
MSA receives an annual appropriation through the Commonwealth’s approved budget under line item 8910-7110—Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association Main Appropriation. For fiscal year 2023, MSA was allocated $639,500, and for fiscal year 2024, the appropriation increased to $686,006.
Operational Capacity Reports
Operational Capacity Reports (OCRs), required under Section 6A of Chapter 124 of the General Laws, are reports that track the occupancy levels and operational statuses of correctional facilities in the Commonwealth. Twice a year, MSA must prepare an OCR in partnership with the Department of Correction. The purpose of the OCR is to assist the legislature in evaluating whether the state’s correctional facilities have sufficient capacity to meet current and projected inmate population levels.
Each OCR includes an inventory of all buildings that have housed inmates since January 1, 2018 and notes any changes in how those buildings have been used over time. OCRs also provide details like the average number of inmates during each reporting period, the number of beds, the types of housing (e.g., cells or dormitories), and the level of security in each area. OCRs also track how much time inmates typically spend outside their cells for activities like recreation, education, or work. Additionally, OCRs note whether each building is currently in use, ready for future use, or no longer being used.
Each sheriff’s office is responsible for reporting data regarding its facilities for the periods of January 1 through June 30 and July 1 through December 31. This information is submitted in a Microsoft Excel workbook, with separate worksheets for each sheriff’s office. MSA collects the data, compiles the full OCR, and submits it within 30 days after each reporting period ends. The final report is sent to the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, the Senate and House Committees on Ways and Means, the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, and the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security.
Coordination and Standardization of Services and Programs
As part of this audit, we followed up on a finding from our previous audit of MSA (Audit No. 2021-1447-3J), which found that MSA had not established written policies and procedures to ensure that programs and services offered by sheriffs’ offices were coordinated and standardized across the Commonwealth. In response to that finding, MSA reported that it was working in collaboration with the 101 Commission1 (established under Section 101 of Chapter 41 of the Acts of 2019) and legislative leadership to develop the Programs, Services, Interventions, and Reinvestments (PSI) Matrix.
Development of the PSI Matrix began in fiscal year 2022 with the goal of identifying and recording all programs and services offered by each sheriff’s office to better understand which agencies were providing which specific services. According to MSA officials, before this effort, there was no standardized mechanism for collecting or comparing programmatic data across counties. Each office operated independently, often using different inmate data management systems, program titles, and structures, which complicated statewide evaluation and coordination.
To build the PSI Matrix, MSA conducted a system-wide review to compile an inventory of active programs and services. MSA then worked to standardize program names and descriptions to eliminate ambiguity and promote consistent reporting.
Sheriffs’ offices complete a standardized template for each program, providing detailed information such as program descriptions, the number of individuals served, program capacities, intended outcomes, session frequencies, program durations, professional standards followed, required licenses or certifications, operating times and costs, and funding sources. MSA compiles these templates into an annual PSI Matrix Report, which is submitted to the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, and the Senate and House Committees on Ways and Means.
| Date published: | November 26, 2025 |
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