To the editor:

Sheriff Hodgson’s brutal methods are well-known. We also know that he had his ICE facility closed because of it. What’s the result of his approach? More people return to jail under the current sheriff than any other jailer in the commonwealth. 

After 25 years, Hodgson must go. 

We have the opportunity to bestow justice, integrity and honor upon our sheriff’s department by voting in the Sept. 6 primary for Mayor Paul Heroux to be our next sheriff.

It behooves each of us to end the practice of brutalizing people sent to jail only to have them returned to our streets more desperate and more hopeless and with a greater chance of recidivism. 

This must end this and with Mayor Paul Heroux as sheriff it will. 

Programs will be put into place so everyone who serves their time learns to read and write if they are illiterate, be treated for addiction if that is the cause, have an opportunity to work and have a place to live, be treated if they have a mental illness so they may become a contributing member of society instead of an individual cast into society more desolate, desperate, hopeless and more prone to commit a crime. 

We must return a sense of dignity to the men and women who work in our jails and oversee the lives of the inmates there; we must do the honorable thing and vote to elect Mayor Paul Heroux as our next Sheriff.

Michael Rogovsky,

New Bedford