Ashe was singled out for his work over the last 37 years as sheriff and his innovations in jail management and ways to reduce released inmates from becoming re-offenders.
Michael J. AsheLUDLOW - Hampden County Sheriff Michael J. Ashe will be honored Thursday at a Boston ceremony by the non-profit organization Community Resources for Justice for his work during his 37-year tenure as sheriff.
The annual event, planned for 6:30-9 p.m. at the Fairmont Battery Wharf Hotel, celebrates people who are dedicated to social justice and improving society by helping others.
Ashe will be recognized with the organization’s Community Hero Award.
He was singled out for his work over the last 37 years as sheriff and his innovations in jail management and ways to reduce released inmates from becoming re-offenders.
John J. Larivee, CEO for Community Resources for Justice, said he has worked closely with Ashe since the 1970s and saw that he always set high expectations and was always unafraid to try something new if he felt it could get results.
“He has continued to do it and he continues to do it well,” said Larivee during a recent meeting with The Republican Editorial Board.
The Boston-based Community Resources for Justice is a non-profit agency that was originally formed in the 1878. Among other things, it works with incarcerated men and women to prevent them from being re-offenders and with teens who are at-risk of arrest.
It also provides training, research and evaluation for criminal justice agencies.
When Ashe was first elected sheriff, he implemented the center’s proposed but untried set of performance standards that are now used nationwide, Larivee said.
He also credited Ashe with creating the first day-reporting center in the United States, which provides an option to incarceration of non-violent offenders, and praised Ashe’s work with community health centers to maintain basic health care for inmates after release.
“Our organization has benefited immensely from the work we’ve done in Hampden County with Mike Ashe,” Larivee said.
Ashe, in a prepared statement said, “This award means a great deal to me because Community Resources for Justice is one of the oldest and most foremost organizations in the country advocating for sensible and effective criminal justice policies and practices in the country.”
Ashe said he could identify with the “community” portion of the Community Hero Award because “all of our thrust for over 37 years has been toward a community corrections model, meaning we se to partner with the positive, productive people and organizations in our communities to accomplish the work of corrections.”
The “hero” portion of the award should go to members of his staff at the Hampden County Correctional Center who each day “perform acts of heroism and humanity, out of the limelight (and) away from the glory,” he said.