Police/Fire

Alcohol center will continue dress policy

HOLYOKE – Sheriff Michal J. Ashe, Jr. had announced that the Western Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center will continue its “Shirt and Tie” policy for inmates at its new location on Lower Westfield Road in Holyoke.
In 2007, the Western Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center (WMCAC) established a policy in which male inmates incarcerated there in Orientation and Phase 1 of the Correctional Center’s program are required to wear a shirt and tie between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 P.m., Monday through Friday. The women’s dress code includes Oxford-style shirts.
When the dress code was inaugurated in 2007, staff members and Goodwill Industries donated shirts and ties. The Correctional Center has since formed a partnership with the Salvation Army in which Correctional Center residents perform Community Service Restitution at the Salvation Army, and in return the Salvation Army gives the Center a $5,000 voucher to shop for clothing.
Residents assist each other in matching shirts and ties, and residents and staff teach how to tie a tie.
The Western Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center was founded in 1985 to incarcerate and treat individuals with multiple driving under the influence offenses. It has since expanded its criteria to include those with substance abuse problems who are sentenced to jail for offences other DUI. Currently there are 114 men and 12 women incarcerated there.
Last year, 90 percent of intakes at the Correctional Alcohol Center successfully completed the program, without being sent back to higher security.
According to James Kelleher, Assistant Superintendent of Operations of the Sheriff’s Department and former Assistant Superintendent of WMCAC, in a statement released to the press: “We see the concept of a resident ‘trying on a new uniform’ with a shirt and tie as analogous to (their) being introduced to a recovery lifestyle that may feel foreign initially. The other thing that we are cognizant of is that the ‘recovery culture’ created within the facility is our continual focus. Most residents adopt the feel of the program, voluntarily dressing up for weekend visits, etc… Just this past weekend, I saw through my office window, six residents hopping in a van with their community church escort. All six were in shirt and tie. This was in no way mandatory. We have seen the same behavior with job searching. Residents are better suited to impress during an interview, with elevated confidence.”
“I see my job as a correctional administrator as helping to lift people up to a new way of living,” Ashe, who is chief administrator of the facility, said in the statement. “What I seek to do is to challenge those in my custody to pick up the tools and directions to build a law-abiding life. Part of those tools, in this instance, are a shirt and tie, and part of those directions are to put them on.”

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