Local hospitals like Baystate Franklin Medical Center improve the lives of people with serious illnesses — family members and neighbors— in our community. We count on hospitals to provide high-quality, evidence-based treatment to all who seek care.

There is another county institution that provides this care: the Franklin County House of Correction. Our community jail houses individuals who have been accused of or sentenced for criminal activity. The job of the jail is to protect society while the justice system determines guilt or innocence, and sentence or release. The job of our jail is also to protect and improve the health and well-being of the people incarcerated there.

As I have seen first hand, because of Franklin County Sheriff Chris Donelan’s leadership over the last 14 years, the House of Correction has become one of the best-run jails in the country. As one of the largest employers in the county, it is staffed by committed and highly trained correctional officers, therapists, nurses and administrators.

Individual and group therapy is offered using the best evidenced models of trauma treatment. Medical care meets or exceeds the standard of care with the provision of low barrier treatment for substance use disorder and psychiatric illness, in addition to the management of acute and chronic diseases. Specific to opioid use disorder, our jail was one of the first nationally to offer buprenorphine treatment in 2016 and the first known fully licensed jail providing methadone in the United States. The treatment people receive has reduced their risk of returning to jail and improved their lives, and those of their loved ones, after release.

Sheriff Donelan has always recognized and acted upon the fact that most everyone at the jail will be returning home. The best outcome for both individuals and society is to return them healthier and with more employable skills than when they arrived. To this end, inmates have available job training in food processing, automotive detailing, carpentry and farming.

A long-serving and superb re-entry team works with current and former inmates to help them with housing, health insurance, medical appointments, recovery supports, and stabilization in the community. The goal of the jail is to not have people return, because they are doing better.

Having people stay healthier during their incarceration helps our whole community. In February 2020, Sheriff Donelan understood that a close-quarters residential facility like the jail would be particularly vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19. An uncontrolled outbreak at the jail would overwhelm the local hospital and the entire community would suffer. This public health and prevention approach in a carceral facility is extremely unusual yet crucial.

As part of his pandemic response, the sheriff treated the jail like the health care facility that it is, requiring all staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Uptake of the vaccines by inmates exceeded the community, with over 90% of inmates receiving the first wave of vaccines. These actions had their intended effect: minimal illness at the jail in the first two critical years and no need for hospitalizations.

Federal researchers took notice of our small Greenfield jail as this was a singular success story. Other correctional facilities in the country had tragically high prison transmission and mortality during the pandemic.

Massachusetts has the lowest rate of incarceration per capita than any other state in the nation, according to the Prison Policy Institute. As a consequence, many of the commonwealth’s prisons and jails are at 50% capacity. Lawmakers will likely look at closing facilities as the cost of incarceration in Massachusetts is the highest in the country: an extraordinary $300,000 per inmate per year, twice the cost of the next state, Vermont.

Thanks to Sheriff Donelan, his staff, and community support, our jail stands out as a leader in the state and the nation. Lawmakers on Beacon Hill need to recognize the importance of our treatment-oriented and public health-minded approach to incarceration. With the retirement of Sheriff Donelan, the next sheriff of Franklin County will need special skills and understanding for working with elected officials in Boston to position us for continued success in the coming decades.

Ruth Potee, M.D., has been the medical director at the Franklin County House of Corrections since 2014.