The Suffolk County Sheriff's Department is ending its contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), saying they will be housing more female prisoners from other counties.
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Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins
“We are ending our contract with ICE to reallocate our resources towards helping local women to address long-standing issues that have contributed to their involvement in the criminal justice system,” said Sheriff Steven Tompkins via press release. “Our gender-specific programming, which is among the best in the country, allows us to address these issues, which include domestic violence, sexual exploitation and substance use disorders, to name a few.”
Tompkins said the Sheriff's Department is proud of the services they've been able to provide to ICE, which first signed its contract with the Sheriff's Department in 2003. The Sheriff's Department expects to stop housing ICE detainees by mid-December.
Starting this week the Sheriff's Department will begin receiving pretrial and sentenced women from Plymouth, Essex and Norfolk counties. The Sheriff's Department said they are trying to meet the need to provide critical services to the fastest-growing incarcerated population in the country.
The department will be enrolling female prisoners in its specialized, gender-sensitive programming, including CREW Program (Community Re-Entry for Women).