The Bristol County Sheriff’s Office is an organization of law enforcement, corrections and public safety professionals dedicated to serve the citizens of Southeastern Massachusetts.

The BCSO’s main goal is to boost public safety in the community by rehabilitating criminal offenders. The BCSO operates two campuses of correctional facilities. The main campus in Dartmouth hosts the Bristol County House of Corrections and Women’s Center, which house around 600 offenders combined. Bristol County inmates are serviced by social workers, educators and corrections officers, among others.

The BCSO also operates the Ash Street Jail in New Bedford, the oldest operating jail in the nation. Opened in 1888 with parts of site construction dating back to the 1830s, the Ash Street Jail is a clean, safe and secure facility that holds about 100 inmates and is available as a regional lock-up to police departments in Bristol County and beyond.

Many different departments and career paths are available at the BCSO, including facilities, social work, law enforcement, K9 unit, IT, training, investigations and more. The BCSO is led by Sheriff Paul Heroux.

Click here for more information about the history of the Bristol County Sheriff's Office.

What’s the difference between police and a sheriff in Massachusetts?

There are 14 elected county sheriffs, but thousands of appointed local and state police. The two main jobs of the Sheriff's Office in Massachusetts is to maintain custody of individuals who are sentenced or awaiting trial and serve civil process. Deputy sheriffs who are POST certified may be seen doing traffic details to assist local police departments. Police departments in Bristol County serve the public out in the community performing various functions. The Sheriff’s Office serves the public by keeping its staff inside the jail managing inmates.

Police arrest people. Sheriffs hold people at the order of the courts.

We appreciate our partnerships with local law enforcement as they continue to do their job on the street and allow us to focus on ours behind the wall.

What’s the difference between a Deputy Sheriff and a Corrections Officer?

A corrections officer (CO) is always trained by the correctional officer academy to manage inmates in the jail.

A deputy sheriff is someone who went through the police academy and often does traffic details for local police departments and paid by the local police for the detail. They are not patrolling streets like police officers, except by request of the local police chief.

Most COs are not deputy sheriffs. And most deputy sheriffs are not COs. There are about 10 people who are both.

Some jail employees are ‘deputized’ because of their job in the jail, but are not out doing traffic details for local police.

What’s the difference between a jail and a prison?

Prisons, in Massachusetts run by the Department Of Correction (DOC), generally hold people who are sentenced for felonies. Jails generally hold people for misdemeanors and awaiting trial, with some limited activity holding detainees for police departments until the detainee can appear before a judge on the next open business day.

The jails are run by elected sheriffs. The DOC is run by someone appointed by the elected governor.

What’s the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony?

Generally speaking, misdemeanors are all crimes that are not punishable by imprisonment in the state prison or death. Any crime with the possibility of a state prison sentence is a felony. Any crime with only a jail sentence is a misdemeanor. An individual can only be sentenced to jail for a misdemeanor for a max of 2.5 years.