The Detention Center
Plymouth County Correctional Facility
- Operated byPlymouth County Sheriff's Office
- Office address26 Long Pond Road, Plymouth, MA 02360
- Phone(508) 830-6200
Source: Plymouth County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald, Jr.
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff has custody and control of the jail and house of correction (MGL ch. 126 § 16)
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff, six-year term (MGL ch. 37 § 1)
- County governmentStill a governmental unit. Plymouth County Commissioners.
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Plymouth County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-20
The Judges
Not found
Plymouth County Circuit Court
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-20
The Legislature, and in six counties a county board
The state pays for the jail. The elected sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe appropriation. Massachusetts abolished county government in eight of the fourteen counties — Berkshire, Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, Suffolk and Worcester — and their sheriffs and houses of correction are managed by the state Executive Office of Public Safety and funded by the Legislature. Six counties still function as governmental units: Barnstable (as Cape Cod Regional Government), Bristol, Dukes, Nantucket, Norfolk and Plymouth.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected to a six-year term (MGL ch. 37 § 1) and has custody and control of the jail, the prisoners and the staff (MGL ch. 126 § 16). The Department of Public Health inspects the facilities and publishes the reports.
- The boardPlymouth County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The Sheriff's Department website could not be opened in any ordinary browser on the day of the audit, and rendered only partially for an automated reader. What rendered was a recruitment and community page carrying no jail records and not naming the sheriff.
- The county is recorded as not scored rather than scored at zero, because a page that will not open is not evidence that a county publishes nothing.
- Figures circulating elsewhere for this facility's capacity come from the sheriffs' association and from federal and academic sources, not from the county. They earn no mark here.
- The department holds federal immigration detainees under contract. A court ruling concerning the release of records relating to those detainees was reported in August 2026.
- The Department of Public Health inspected this facility and published its report on 13 January and 27 February 2025. The county's own site does not link it.
These offices decide what happens to people arrested in Plymouth County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
This county's record could not be read. The offices named above are still elected, and still answerable.
Names verified 2026-09-20 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered