Audit of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department (December 24, 2025)

This is a Massachusetts State Auditor performance audit of selected Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department activities from July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2024.

“In accordance with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the Office of the State Auditor has conducted a performance audit of certain activities of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department (SCSD) for the period July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2024.”

Auditors checked whether the department followed rules and its own policies for inmate services, education, substance use treatment, orientation, counseling, crisis help, and medical care requests.

“The purpose of our audit was to determine the following:”

These programs and controls matter because they affect whether incarcerated people know their rights, get appropriate services, receive medical attention on time, and are better prepared to return to the community.

“If SCSD does not annually review the needs of its sentenced inmates in relation to the social service programs it offers, SCSD has a higher risk that it may not provide its sentenced inmates with programs essential to their needs in order to set them up for successful reentry.”

For the public, this matters because the department’s mission includes public safety, lawful custody, and rehabilitation aimed at reducing repeat offending.

“The primary mission of SCSD . . . is: to enforce the laws of the Commonwealth and to serve and protect the citizens of Suffolk County; to strengthen public safety through corrections and providing specialized support services to all criminal justice agencies; and to maintain the safe and secure custody and control of inmates and detainees while offering extensive rehabilitation opportunities to effectively reduce offender recidivism.”

The auditor found seven main problems, including missing proof of annual needs reviews, late or missing orientations, uncertified vocational instructors, missing education assessments or refusal forms, missing MAT consent forms, weak healthcare vendor monitoring, and missing education procedures.

“In addition to the conclusions we reached regarding our audit objectives, we also identified issues not specifically addressed by our objectives.”

The Sheriff’s Department said it is making or planning changes, and the auditor plans to check back in about six months.

“As part of our post-audit review process, we will follow up on this matter in approximately six months.”

The most serious practical risk is that poor oversight could mean medical issues are not handled on time, or are missed altogether, and vendor problems may go unnoticed.

“There is, therefore, a higher risk that sentenced inmates or pretrial detainees have not, and will not, have their healthcare issues properly resolved within the required timeframes or at all.”

A Health Service Request Form, or HSRF, is the form an incarcerated person uses to ask for medical, dental, or mental health care; the report also refers to this process as sick call.

“To request healthcare services, a sentenced inmate or pretrial detainee completes a sick call form, called the Health Service Request Form (HSRF), and states the type of service requested (medical, dental, or mental health).”