Tompkins, Steven W.

High SheriffDemocratSheriffs

Agency Sheriffs
Division Suffolk County
Title High Sheriff
Address House of Correction, 20 Bradston Street & Nashua Street Jail, 200 Nashua Street
Boston, MA 2114
Phone 617-635-1100 x 6655
Email Stompkins@scsdma.org
Website www.scsdma.org
X @stevenwtompkins

Official Record

Year Started Current Position 2012
Years in Current Position 15
Years in State Service 28
Year Elected Appointed 2013 & Elected 2014
Number of Employees 1000+
Lockups 2

Personal Information

Place of Birth New York City
Town of Residence Hyde Park, MA
Marital Status Married
Children 2

Education & Career

Education
- Boston College (BA - Communications)
- UMASS - Boston, (Public Affairs)
Previous Employment
- Director of External Affairs - SCSD, 2002
- Chief of External Affairs -
Organizations
- Sheriff Tompkins currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for Roxbury Community College, served as former Board Chair of the Sportsman’s Tennis Club and as a member of the board for City Year Boston. In 2011, Tompkins was appointed by Governor Patrick to serve as a Board member of the Boston Finance Commission. Sheriff Tompkins also served as chair of the Community Service Board for the Dimock Center, a Roxbury–based community health center that provides convenient access to quality medical and mental health care and human services, and he recently stepped down from service on their Foundation Board. The Sheriff previously served as the Dimock Center’s Director of Marketing and Public Affairs prior to joining the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department.

Priorities

The following is a list of the five key initiatives that I am focused on as the Sheriff of Suffolk County. With our actions on these topics, it is my heartfelt belief that we will achieve results in the form of increased public safety throughout Suffolk County and beyond:
1) Care Custody and Control – The Sheriff’s Department is mandated to maintain Custody – or guardianship – of inmates and detainees while providing a set standard of care, which encompasses the overall health and wellbeing, and personal safety of our population. Control is the element that allows us to redirect behavior and work to change the way a person thinks and acts.
2) Domestic Violence – Nationally, 1-4 women will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes and many of the women in our custody arrive bearing the physical and emotional scars from this terrible trauma. As Sheriff, I am bolstering our existing programming around violence prevention and recovery, and reaching out to community organizations to form partnerships aimed at increasing services for both prevention and healing.
3) Education – In Massachusetts, it costs approximately $46,000 to incarcerate an individual per year
It costs just $13,361 to educate a child annually. It is both my personal and professional objective to use all available resources to strengthen our educational programs not only for those who are receptive in our population, but also for our outreach to the young people within our neighborhoods to prevent them from ever entering our facilities and instead help propel them to success.
4) Mental Health and Addiction Recovery – Eighty-five percent of the inmates in our custody are committed for drug and alcohol related offenses, and approximately 42% present with some form of mental illness that ranges from mild personality disorder to major mental illness. I am advocating for more mental health and addiction recovery beds in our communities as both a means to actively support returning citizens in their successful reentry to the community, and also as a preemptive measure to prevent people from entering our facilities unnecessarily in the first place.
5) Recidivism – All of the efforts mentioned previously are part of a greater plan to reduce the number of former inmates who complete their sentences, return to the community, re-offend and find themselves back in our care, custody and control. To this end, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department provides comprehensive programming and services designed to prepare these returning citizens to take advantage of the opportunity to begin leading positive, productive lives.
Sheriff Tompkins is currently serving the first of a two-year term as the President of the Massachusetts Sheriff’s Association, which encompasses the 14 county sheriffs across the Commonwealth.

Staff

Exec Asst's: Natalie Johnson & Barbara Green — 617-704-6655
njohnson@scsdma.org
617-704-6507
bgreen@scsdma.org