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With no correctional or law enforcement experience,
Robert E. Cahill ran for and won the office of High Sheriff of Essex
County, Massachusetts, becoming the first Democrat elected to the
post in it’s over 300 year history. What Cahill discovered as
he took office in 1974 was a county correctional system in such a
state of neglect and abuse that it was in violation of almost every
health and human-rights regulation on the books.
This is a first-person true story of thieves, murders, fugitives,
rioters, reckless youths, the criminally insane and the wayward sheriffs
that were charged with taking care of them. It is about the miraculous
progress of these destitute inmates and bumbling sheriffs in the bastilles
of “Witch County” as they struggled from the dark ages
into the Twentieth Century. In the process, the High Sheriff was also
transformed from a staunch conservative to a devious liberal, battling
many foes, including the public and press, to win equal rights for
his inmates- a battle that almost killed him. This book is an eye-opener
for Americans, exposing how we neglect and mistreat our downtrodden
and dysfunctional fellow citizens. |