When Hillsborough County Commissioner Toni Pappas toured the Valley Street Jail in Manchester last December, as she and fellow commissioners are required to do at least twice a year, she didn’t appear to find any cause for concern.

“I have found the condition of the facility, the security of the inmates, and the management to be in order,” Pappas wrote in an inspection report filed with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. “The inmates are being cared for pursuant to [state law], and are appropriately supervised by trained correctional staff.”

Based on what she saw, she concluded, “there are no specific actions that need to be taken.” 

But just a few days after that visit, a Hillsborough County Superior Court judge came to a dramatically different conclusion about conditions inside the same facility. In an order granting bail to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 while being held at the jail, the judge said he was “deeply troubled by the cavalier attitude that [the facility] has shown toward its inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic.” 

Soon, the Valley Street Jail, the largest county correctional facility in the state, had a full-blown outbreak on its hands: More than half of the people incarcerated at the facility were infected with the virus, with more than 168 cases eventually reported across residents and staff. The facility accounts for about 40 percent of the COVID-19 cases reported at all New Hampshire county jails since the start of the pandemic.

NHPR Reporter Sarah Gibson contributed substantial reporting to this story.

When attorneys and other advocates raised alarm about virus protocols inside the Valley Street Jail last winter, state officials said it was largely out of their control. And they were right.

“That was the moment that it became crystal clear that the system that we have does not work,” Robin Melone, president of the New Hampshire Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, said of the Valley Street Jail outbreak.

In New Hampshire, responsibility for monitoring what’s happening inside county jails rests primarily with county commissioners like Pappas: elected officials who receive no formal training on correctional issues and no supervision from state officials who specialize in issues relevant to incarceration. The lack of consistent statewide standards means that, in times of crisis, the level of protection afforded to those inside county jails hinges on the level of interest and scrutiny their county commissioners bring to their role.

While New Hampshire law gives county commissioners lots of discretion on how to run jails, it is clear on at least one thing: Twice a year, commissioners are supposed to “make a proper examination into the management, condition, and security of the condition of the inmates in county correctional facilities.” And within a month of that inspection, they’re supposed to file a written report on “their findings and actions or proposed actions on such findings” with the New Hampshire Attorney General.

Several counties opted not to conduct in-person jail inspections during the pandemic, citing safety concerns. But an NHPR review of the inspection reports posted publicly on the attorney general’s website found that even before the arrival of COVID-19 most county commissioners were only fulfilling the bare minimum of this law.

(Explore all of the publicly available county jail reports in detail using the tool below, or at this link.)

Most of the inspection reports are no longer than a few paragraphs. Some county commissioners — including those in Hillsborough and Strafford — have re-written essentially the same summary after each visit, year after year, with no mention of changing conditions inside the jail. Coos County’s reports consist of a checklist with minimal comments. In Sullivan and Grafton Counties, reports are similarly brief and routinely authored by jail officials — the very people who are supposed to be the subject of the inspections reports — not the county commissioners.

“The inspection reports looked meaningless,” said Michele Deitch, a distinguished senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin who studies prison and jail oversight across the country. “They were so lacking in detail as to be useless — which is not to say that they are not fulfilling oversight responsibilities in different ways, but there still needs to be another external government entity that’s responsible for going into the facilities and ensuring that they are complying with a set of minimum standards.”

 

‘We have a very transparent operation… Well, as transparent as it can be under the circumstances’

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office said its only role, when it comes to county jail oversight, is to ensure the reports are filed; how the commissioners approach the inspections is up to them. If something in one of the reports raised “significant concern,” Associate Attorney General James Boffetti said the state would investigate.

“But in terms of monitoring for the quality or checking when this examination took place and in what form? That’s really not our role,” he said.

If people have concerns about the inspections or other aspects of county jail oversight, Boffetti said, “they should be raising those with the elected county commissioners.”

Some county officials, when questioned about their inspection reports, said they believed they were doing what the law asked of them. Sullivan County Manager Derek Ferland said that even though his county commissioners do not personally author their jail inspection reports — that task is delegated to him and jail officials — they still take the tours seriously and give the reports careful review before they’re submitted to the attorney general.

“When we submit a report saying the commissioners walked through the building, that’s what the law is for, is to ensure that they’ve done that,” Ferland said. “As far as having them write a report — to me, that’s just good staff work, you typically don’t have the senior person in your organization responsible for the administrative tasks.”

Grafton County, however, plans to change how they approach their reports after being contacted by NHPR for this story: They will no longer be authored by jail officials, and Grafton County Commissioner Wendy Piper said they will more fully reflect the “full-bodied conversations” commissioners have with staff and people held at the jail.

“I’m sorry for the lack of detail on the reports, because I believe that they should be more detailed,” she said, explaining that inspections are usually much more thorough than what their previous reports would suggest.

Piper, who also serves as the president of the New Hampshire Association of Counties, said it would be helpful if the state provided a standard inspection form so that there was more uniformity across counties. 

To the extent that commissioners go into detail in their inspection reports, they tend to focus on facility issues — whether the kitchens or showers were clean, for example, or whether the security system was functioning — rather than on the welfare of the people inside the jail.

A notable exception is in Cheshire County, where commissioners typically provide a minute-by-minute log of their visits. Their reports also usually include summaries of what are described as private conversations between the commissioners and people who live and work at the jail. 

“I look at it as a way that we could all improve, in terms of how we deliver public services to our constituents,” said Chuck Weed, who until recently served as a Cheshire County commissioner and previously led the statewide association of counties.

County commissioners across the state emphasized that these inspections aren’t the only way they hold their local jails accountable. 

“While there is always room for improvement, I believe we Commissioners take our responsibility to oversee the jail very seriously,” Pappas, who has served as a Hillsborough County commissioner for about two decades, wrote in a statement in response to questions from NHPR. “Our job is to protect the safety of our community and the security of our inmates. I believe this happens with the impartial monitoring and oversight that occurs during jail inspections, but more importantly happens during our bi-weekly meetings with our Superintendent.”

Longtime Strafford County Commissioner George Maglaras says he meets weekly with his jail superintendent, but he doesn’t believe he needs to share the details of those meetings with the public because they involve discussions that could compromise the security of the facility, the privacy of the people who are held there or personnel matters about jail staff. 

Instead, Maglaras has included the same, brief summary in each of his jail inspection reports dating back to 2013. It reads: “We found the House of Corrections/Jail to be in excellent condition regarding the management and security, as well as in cleanliness during this inspection.”

“The reports that we filed meet our statutory obligation,” Maglaras told NHPR. “If I filed the report on the weekly meetings we have with the superintendent … most of the information would not be made, could not be made public.”

He’s confident the Strafford County jail has “the highest standards of any facility in the state,” because it also doubles as a federal immigration detention center.

“We have a very transparent operation,” he said. “Well, as transparent as it can be, under the circumstances that we’re dealing with.”

Most Other States Have At Least Some Kind of Statewide Jail Oversight

New Hampshire county government has few major responsibilities and operates largely out of the spotlight, compared to the state or even local government. County commissioners are in charge of funding and monitoring some obscure positions, like registers of deeds, but also a few highly consequential ones: county attorney offices, county nursing homes and county jails.

In contrast to county correctional facilities, other county-level positions in New Hampshire are routinely subjected to at least some kind of state-level scrutiny. County sheriffs are certified through the New Hampshire Police Standards and Training Council, which explicitly says it “does not train or certify County Corrections personnel.” County nursing homes are licensed and monitored by the Department of Health and Human Services, or their federal counterparts. County attorneys, the top prosecutors elected in each of the state’s 10 counties, too, are subject to oversight from the New Hampshire Attorney General.

“That sort of analog doesn’t really exist in the same way with county Departments of Corrections,” said Henry Klementowicz, an attorney for the ACLU of New Hampshire.

That also puts New Hampshire in the minority of states without at least some kind of state oversight of local jails. 

According to Deitch, 28 states provide at least some kind of jail regulation through the state correctional agency, a statewide sheriff’s association, an independent commission or, in some cases, the state health agency. 

Those who study correctional systems across the country caution that merely having state-level oversight doesn’t automatically bring more accountability. These systems can still lack the kind of transparency, consistency and enforcement options to bring meaningful changes. 

“Even where formal oversight mechanisms have been built in states, they tend to not produce a lot more dignity or safety for the people behind bars,” said Jasmine Heiss, who directs the Vera Institute of Justice’s In Our Backyards project, which focuses on incarceration in smaller towns and rural communities.

However, Deitch — who has spent much of her career studying correctional oversight — wasn’t aware of any other state except New Hampshire where the primary responsibility for monitoring county jails rests with local elected officials. And this model concerns her on a few levels.

“Relying on them to point out problems in the facilities is a concern because they don’t have the expertise to know what they’re looking for,” Deitch said. “And, arguably, they’ve got a conflict of interest because they’re the ones that are funding and ultimately liable for what happens there.”

There are some potential benefits to giving elected officials at least some role in jail oversight, Heiss said, since they’re ultimately accountable to the public.

“If there are things happening that voters don’t like, there is always the possibility for them to respond and to use direct democracy as a way to sort of hold people accountable or to ask for something different,” Heiss said.

County government can often be an afterthought in the minds of the average New Hampshire resident. But attorneys who work directly with clients at New Hampshire’s county jails, including Valley Street, said there are good reasons for people to pay closer attention to how these facilities are being supervised.

For one, local defense attorney Suzanne Ketteridge said, “everybody’s entitled to a certain level of care and dignity.”

“A lot of people in jail are pre conviction — they have not been convicted,” she said. “It could be your son or your brother that somehow ends up in the jail, for whatever reason.”

In Hillsborough County, county jail troubles predated pandemic

From the beginning of the pandemic, public health officials across the country warned that jails — like nursing homes or other congregate settings — were especially at risk. But the Hillsborough County Commissioners received several warnings about the Valley Street Jail’s management of the virus even before their December inspection.

Local defense attorneys started sounding the alarm over the Valley Street Jail’s COVID-19 testing procedures and mask rules, or lack thereof, in late December. Around the same time, some people held at the facility started to report symptoms associated with the coronavirus, including chills, cough and fever. According to an email obtained through an open records request, Pappas received questions from a reporter about “flu like symptoms” circulating at the jail on Dec. 21. And according to county meeting minutes, commissioners were notified that COVID-19 was detected at the facility “the day before Christmas.” 

In reporting this story, NHPR reached out to Pappas and other Hillsborough County officials with a list of specific questions about the steps they took to assess the Valley Street Jail’s COVID-19 protocols. They did not respond directly to those questions and did not agree to be interviewed for this story, instead supplying written statements.

In an interview with NHPR on Dec. 24, Pappas said she was confident the jail was following recommended virus prevention processes and that the jail superintendent was “very meticulous in his reporting and forthright when questions are asked of him.” 

Several days later, a judge determined that the jail was, under the leadership of the same superintendent, acting “in a manner that exhibits deliberate indifference to the health of its inmates” by not following recommended public health guidance.

Even before COVID-19, the Valley Street Jail had a reputation as one of the state’s most troubled correctional facilities.

(Read more in this 2017 NHPR series: A Question of Justice in N.H.’s Biggest Jail)

In 2017, the facility’s former physician surrendered his license amid mounting allegations of substandard medical care. In 2019, according to the Associated Press, a public defender ended up in intensive care following an alleged assault at the jail. In the last decade, according to records compiled by Reuters, 12 people have died while in custody at the facility — including four by suicide and four due to drug overdoses.

One of the potential consequences for poor conditions and lax oversight in county jails is a lawsuit. And when this happens, it’s usually county taxpayers who foot the bill. As reported by the New Hampshire Union Leader, Hillsborough County paid nearly a million dollars to “quietly settle claims involving allegations of beatings, improper medical care and sexual discrimination” between 2008 and 2013.

“As a taxpayer, we should be concerned about that,” said Ketteridge, who ran a for a seat on Hillsborough County’s board of commissioners last year after a career as a public defender. “Why is that happening? Why isn’t that happening in all the other jails? Those are important questions that need to be asked.”

Hillsborough County officials declined repeated interview requests for this story, instead supplying written statements via email. Pappas praised the jail’s staff for their management of the pandemic and said commissioners have pushed the state to bring COVID-19 vaccines to the jail “because of our concern for the well-being and health of our inmates.”

“I recommend that detractors of our county jail see for themselves the highly trained professionals who protect the safety of our inmates and the security of our community,” Pappas wrote. “I urge anyone who has questions about conditions inside our jail to please take a complete tour of the facility. I believe this will lead to a better understanding of the condition of our jail, and may build trust in our system.”

‘The system is working how they want it to work’

Anthony Harris doesn’t need to tour the jail to understand what conditions are like inside. He lived it.

“If you ask the people, the people in Manchester know about Valley Street,” said Harris, who was incarcerated at the facility in 2017 and now works as a decarceration organizer with the American Friends Service Committee of New Hampshire.

With the exception of a few friendships he forged along the way, Harris said his time inside the facility was “horrendous.” He says he was mistreated by correctional officers and found rocks in his food; when he tried filing grievances, they didn’t go anywhere. But he isn’t surprised by the disconnect between what’s inside the inspection reports and the reality of what he experienced at Valley Street Jail.

“It tells me they don’t care,” he said. “The system is working how they want it to work.”

Harris said there are lots of changes he’d like to see in how county jails are run: more emphasis on the long-term effects of trauma, more focus on viewing the people who are incarcerated as full human beings, more training for corrections personnel. He’d welcome the presence of an “accountability officer” for New Hampshire jails, ideally someone who can focus on rehabilitation and reducing recidivism.

Advocates in New Hampshire and elsewhere say true oversight would include the voices of lots of people who have a stake in the correctional system, including people who have been incarcerated, family members who understand what it’s like to navigate the criminal justice system from the outside and service providers who deal with mental health, substance misuse and other issues that intersect with the criminal justice system. Some also say conversations about jail accountability also need to include conversations about how to reduce society’s reliance on jails, period.

“If we were thinking ambitiously about what the future of jail oversight might look like,” said Heiss, with the Vera Institute, “it would be really something that has meaningful seats for community at that table and ways for the community to compel decarceration, to improve the conditions of people who are living behind bars and to sort of use what people can see in their local jails as a starting point to transform all of the policies that that fill jails and that drive incarceration.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct information about when the Valley Street Jail’s former physician surrendered his medical license.