Sheriff Fears for Future of County Lockup

Dukes County Sheriff Robert Ogden is seeking support from Island leaders for the regional lockup that he says could be endangered by funding reforms statewide. 

The sheriff has sent the six Vineyard towns letters in recent weeks asking them to formalize agreements to use the lockup in order to show the state legislature that the service is essential to the Island.

“It would be devastating to not have the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office operating in the capacity that it is today,” he said in an interview last week.

An 1873 white clapboard building on Upper Main street in Edgartown, the Dukes County jail has doubled as a house of corrections for people serving sentences and a regional lockup for people who have been arrested on the Vineyard and are awaiting their first court date.

On the mainland, the latter duty is handled by individual police departments, who normally have holding cells for arrestees or people taken into protective custody. 

Here on the Vineyard, though, none of the police departments have the infrastructure or the manpower to staff such responsibilities, and the duty has long been delegated to the jail. The county jail here also books arrestees and administers breathalyzer tests. 

The issue looming for the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office is a statewide crackdown on funding for sheriff’s departments in the wake of an inspector general report that highlighted wasteful spending in other departments. 

Inspector general Jeffrey Shapiro called the state budgeting process for sheriffs “opaque, chaotic, and deeply flawed,” in his February report, and said there is a lack of consistency in discretionary costs for sheriffs. 

State lawmakers have now vowed to overhaul the funding mechanisms, but Sheriff Ogden fears that the lockup service could get caught in the crossfire because it isn’t traditionally delegated to sheriff’s departments.

“During the budget process, the Legislature has been clear that only statutorily authorized functions of each Sheriff’s Office will receive funding priority,” he wrote in his letter to the towns. 

To shore up the service, which would cost the towns millions of dollars to run on their own, Sheriff Ogden wants to codify the lockup with the state.

“A memorandum of understanding would solidify and memorialize our obligations to provide our lockup to all six Towns as a regional service and clear the path for continued funding through our general appropriation from the State,” he wrote. 

Sheriff Ogden said he understood the need for scrutiny on sheriff’s departments, but felt his office was getting swept up in issues that occurred on the mainland.

“They have money to spare,” he said. “We don’t, we run lean.” 

The Vineyard’s state representative Thomas Moakley, a democrat from Falmouth, said the inspector general’s initial report has found few issues with the Cape and Islands and it is critical to continue the lockup service on the Vineyard. 

“If the sheriff’s office didn’t have that lockup that would impact all six towns and the courthouse,” he said. “It really wouldn’t be workable at all. Even just booking.” 

Mr. Moakley has a bill in the legislature’s ways and means committee that would create a new fund in the state budget for the lockup, which has historically been paid for out of the sheriff’s normal budget. 

Sheriff Ogden said that getting the reality of how the lockup works here across to lawmakers was essential and he was hopeful that the situation could be addressed. 

“It’s more about defining it and memorializing it in the commonwealth,” he said. “It’s a lack of understanding by the legislature as to what are these roles in small and rural communities like ours.”

This article appears in May 15, 2026.