The South Bay House of Corruption Needs To Go
At the heart of our city lies a monument to corruption, abuse, and capital of the most vile type, spear-headed by the sheriff of Suffolk County, Steve Tompkins, since 2013.
Under Tompkins' care, five inmates died in 2021 alone at the South Bay House of Correctionsi, a jail located near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Boston. A short-term holding facility, often for people in pre-trial detention. Five people dead, in one year.
In 2021, Tompkins advocated for forced treatment for substance users at SBHC, an idea that was sharply criticized by medical professionals and recovery specialists and led to increased attention towards the shocking number of deaths at South Bay.ii Regardless, when Mayor Kim Janey issued an executive order to clear the homeless encampment around Mass. and Cass in 2021,iii Tompkins had his pigs snatch homeless people seeking treatment off the street, often sending them straight to jail.iv
Most recently, Tompkins stood trial for federal charges of corruption related to alleged extortion.v Tompkins was, as is typical for cops committing crimes, acquitted of all charges and is back on the job.vi
The unfortunate reality is that the impulse of public officials—and law enforcement especially—to capitalize on the precarious legal situation surrounding drug use is nothing new. For decades, the United States government has terrorized the world with its so-called “war on drugs,” funneling hundreds of thousands of people into its jails and prisons, where in many cases inmates are coerced to labor in for-profit workhouses for less than a dollar an hour.
Today, while hundreds of thousands of people from primarily Black and other nationally oppressed backgrounds rot in prisons and jails over drug charges, public officials like Tompkinsvii and the executive he allegedly attempted to extort, Frank Perullo, walk free. Frank is not only the president of Ascend Cannabis Dispensary, but also a long-time Democrat party strategist who helped Tompkins get elected sheriff to begin with.viii These pigs, bureaucrats, and capitalists are the people benefiting from both mass incarceration and the weed business.
While Tompkins and his associates cash in, thousands of people are still languishing in prison for weed-related convictions. Even for those who’ve served their sentences, a criminal record follows them like a shadow, barring them from most job prospects and making them an especially vulnerable workforce for companies like Ascend, who pat themselves on the back and trumpet that they’re healing the damage done to communities by America’s drug policy.
But make no mistake: Tompkins and his cronies are merely a symptom of the larger rot that our capitalist system is built on.
It must be said that this kind of abuse is not just the purview of local pigs and their good old boy friends. While at home, people suffer the bondage and blows of killer cops and their white-collar partners, the world at large bears the brunt of the United States’ campaign of narco terror that originates at the highest channels of power.
In response to these abuses, we say: we want all prisoners under drug-related sentences out of prison, we want the imperialists out of Latin America, and we want the South Bay House of Corruption out of our city!
Endnotes
i Betancourt, Sarah. “Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office Reports Fifth Death in Six Months.” GBH, December 14, 2021. https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2021-12-14/suffolk-county-sheriffs-office-reports-fifth-death-in-six-months.
ii McDonald, Danny. “Some Advocates and Experts Push Back against Sheriff’s Mass. and Cass Proposal.” Boston Globe, September 27, 2021. https://archive.ph/fsK10 .
iii Leung, Shirley. “A Look inside the Jail Space That Could Become a Mass. and Cass Unit.” Boston Globe, October 23, 2021. https://archive.ph/Ej3lv#selection-1350.0-1350.1.
iv Bedford, Tori. “ACLU Sues City To Stop ‘Fundamentally Unlawful’ Tent-Clearing And Arrests At Mass. and Cass.” GBH, November 5, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20230212205309/https://www.wgbh.org/news/news/2021/11/05/aclu-sues-city-to-stop-fundamentally-unlawful-tent-clearing-and-arrests-at-mass-and-cass.
v Reilly, Adam. “Tompkins Pleads Not Guilty to Extortion.” GBH, August 21, 2025. https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2025-08-21/tompkins-pleads-not-guilty-to-extortion.
vi Reilly, Adam. “Tompkins Pleads Not Guilty to Extortion.” GBH, August 21, 2025. https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2025-08-21/tompkins-pleads-not-guilty-to-extortion.
vii For more information on the many allegations of corruption leveled against Sheriff Tompkins, and the longer-term history of corruption and abuse within the Suffolk County Sheriff’s office, see McDonald, Danny, and Andrew Ryan. “At Suffolk Sheriff’s Office, Employees Say a Troubled History Is Repeating Itself.” Boston Globe, September 4, 2025. https://archive.ph/7hFGQ.
viii Dumcius, Gintautas. “The Extortion Trial of Suffolk County Sheriff Tompkins Begins next Week. Here’s What to Know.” WBUR, August 17, 2026. https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/08/17/suffolk-county-sheriff-steve-tompkins-extorton-trial.