TWO JAILS

Both have the right to wear the silver star and dangle the jailhouse keys
from their belts. Both are local notables whose bold steps have attracted
national attention. And both are handshake, clambake politicians who love
the clout that comes with being sheriff and presiding over one of the
oldest government institutions: the county jail.

But the similarities between Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson and
Hampden County Sheriff Michael Ashe end there.

Hodgson, a Republican elected on a get-tough platform, gained his fame for
reinstituting chain gangs and making inmates pay for everything from hair
cuts to doctors' appointments. Ashe, a Democrat elected on a platform of
jail reform, has focused on getting grant money to provide health care to
prisoners even after they leave jail and starting the nation's first
day-release program, where prisoners can serve the last months of their
sentences at home.

Although Ashe's time in the media spotlight happened a decade ago, criminal
justice experts credit him with innovations they say have lowered the
numbers of re-offenders. But Hodgson insists his jail is the new national
model and his tough approach works best, despite a blast of negative
publicity in the wake of a searing riot last week at his Dartmouth jail.

The two sheriffs occupy the poles of the rehabilitation-versus-punishment
debate that has long existed in criminal justice circles. That they can
coexist in the same state, sitting across the table from each other during
monthly meetings, speaks volumes about the wide latitude given county
sheriffs to mete out justice as they see fit.

Further proof of just how decentralized the county jail system, which holds
low-level offenders, is that there are few reporting requirements on the
individual jails that would help measure their effectiveness.

At Hampden County Correctional Center, outside Springfield, Ashe ambles the
laboratory-clean hallways addressing the prisoners who bound by in mint
green uniforms with, ''How are you, men?''

The lean, 61-year-old sheriff points to the pink doors, the hanging plants,
and the posters daring prisoners to give up drugs. These details are no
accident. Nothing here is.

''I call it creating a climate of success,'' said Ashe, who classifies
prisoners upon arrival into levels one through eight - ''based on their
needs'' - and guides them like a stern baseball coach through a gantlet of
drug rehab programs and vocational training. In a jail wing called the
accountability pod, undisciplined inmates are stripped of TV and recreation
privileges and a chart calibrates the points they must earn to return to
''normal'' jail life.

Ashe, a former social worker who once ran a group home for troubled youths,
is the elder statesman of the Massachusetts Sheriffs' Association, whose
members meet monthly to share ideas. During his quarter century in office,
he has served as a mentor to many other sheriffs and has designed a jail
that reflects his deepest convictions about human nature and crime.

''Our job is to bring out the best in people,'' he said. ''Jails don't have
to be hellholes, fortresses in the woods, or warehouses.''

Hodgson, a 47-year-old renegade who took office in 1997, often finds
himself silent or respectfully disagreeing at the monthly sheriffs'
meetings. In a country where conservatism is enjoying a renaissance, he
said his way is more in line with what the public wants, and what he
believes works. A former policeman from Maryland who admits to loftier
political ambitions in Massachusetts, Hodgson struts the stark hallways of
Bristol County's Dartmouth jail with the air of a take-no-guff warden.

Jail, he says, is not supposed to be a positive place.

Even the classrooms in his jail support that ethos. There are no posters
offering understanding and encouragement here.

Hodgson insists his approach works and shares countless memories of
prisoners thanking him for being the first person to make them realize they
didn't want to be in prison. Changing their attitude towards jail, Hodgson
says, is the key.

Like members of a gentlemen's club, Ashe and Hodgson don't like to compare
themselves to each other and would rather underscore their similarities: no
smoking (most of the 13 jails in Massachusetts don't allow it), no contact
visits (Ashe recently cut them out because of drug smuggling), literacy
programs and community service work.

But wherever one looks in their respective fiefdoms, it's hard to ignore
the evidence of their profound differences.

Hodgson's men rake leaves outside of elderly homes, chained together at the
ankles. Ashe's men also rake leaves, but they look more like sanitation
workers, roaming the yard freely, while the officer watching them carries a
rake, not a gun.

Even after the construction of the new Bristol County jail in Dartmouth,
Hodgson refused to close the ancient and overcrowded Ash Street jail in New
Bedford, arguing that the old, uncomfortable structure suited his idea of
justice just fine.

Ashe, on the other hand, earned his moment in the national spotlight by
commandeering an armory to ease overcrowding in his ancient jail in
Springfield in 1990 and fighting for the modern facility he has today.

Ashe says his approach doesn't have to be more expensive. The Hampden
County jail system, which holds 1,751 inmates (a small number of which are
women), spends about $26,000 in taxpayer money per inmate, an amount that
excludes grants from foundations like Ford and Soros.

They keep costs down, Ashe says, by being self-sufficient. At this
fenced-in city in the woods, inmates learning to be barbers cut their
fellow inmates' hair. Those learning graphic design produce the jail
handbooks. Inmates learning upholstery make their own uniforms. The weight
rooms are paid for with commissary profits. The key, Ashe says, is giving
them the tools to succeed outside the fence.

But Hodgson stands by his approach, which he stresses is what his taxpayers
want. In the Bristol County system, which holds 1,030 (also including a
small number of women), the per-inmate cost is about $30,000, a figure that
he said he is determined to bring down.

So, inmates paying out of pocket for services such as a taxi to the
hospital has increasingly become part of the punishment. If Hodgson could
charge prisoners for being in prison, he would.

It's not right, he said, to have inmates ''sitting around with TVs in their
cells, not having to pay for any of the services, getting free hair cuts,
getting a free membership to the weight room and the gym.''

Hodgson's jail does have some vocational training, but inmates are not
paid. They already get ''free room and board, the taxpayers footing the
bill while they are here,'' said Hodgson.

So who is right?

''You have two sheriffs with dramatically different visions on what is
correction,'' said Michael Forcier, a former deputy research statistician
with the state Department of Corrections, now a part-time professor at
Simmons College. ''What you get is differences in outcome. You have a riot
in one case and a lower recidivism rate in another.''

But he admits that, because county jails are not required to track
recidivism rates, researchers cannot know for sure which approach works
best. He did say that, when comparing Hampden's rates to those from other
correctional facilities that also report those numbers, it fares well.

In state prisons, where recidivism rates are closely monitored, nearly 37
percent of all prisoners return to custody within two years of being
released, corrections data shows. Ashe calculates that about 22 percent of
his county inmates are re-incarcerated within two years.

The Bristol jail has not calculated its recidivism rate.

The recent riot in the Dartmouth jail is prompting new scrutiny of
Hodgson's policies, which have also sparked recent lawsuits.

Hodgson dismisses the criticism. ''I think people just don't like it when
you exude confidence,'' he said.

And at least one Hampden County inmate wonders if his jail would benefit
from just a touch of Hodgson's get-tough tactics.

William Sanchez, arrested for selling crack at age 17, said he knows of
some down-and-out people who have committed petty crimes just so they could
use the jail programs.

''It's not a bad place,'' he said. ''They get free meals, showers, and
bathrooms and they don't have to worry about staying on the street, and
they have good programs here to keep our minds occupied.''