History
History of the Barnstable County Sheriff's Office
The Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office is one of the oldest in the nation, founded in 1692. More than 300 years later in November 2022, Sheriff Donna D. Buckley was elected the 35th sheriff, making history as the first woman to ever hold the position.
Sheriffs are the first form of law enforcement in the U.S., brought over to the New World by the Pilgrims. The word itself derives from the Old English words “shire” and “reeve.” The “reeve” maintained order within regions, or “shires.”
The history of the Barnstable Sheriff’s Office from the Colonial Days onward is on full display in Barnstable Village, where the oldest wooden jail in the country can be found. Preserved by the Barnstable Historical Society, the Old Jail is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It survived the ravages of time, including a fire set by vandals in 1973, but its walls remain mostly intact and include etchings carved by early prisoners. It still has a hatch, which opened to allow family or friends to bring food for a prisoner. You might say it was the earliest form of canteen.
The Old Jail remained in use until 1820, with some additions, until completion of a new stone jailhouse nearby. In 1972, the Old Jail was rolled along Route 6A from Old Jail Lane to the present location on Cobb's Hill on the grounds of the Coast Guard Heritage Museum. The Barnstable Historical Society offers tours.
The third jail in Barnstable Village, the Barnstable County Jail or House of Correction, was erected in 1935 on the hilltop. Though an addition was added onto the main facility to ease overcrowding, the incarceration rate climbed higher than the location could accommodate.
Sheriff James Cumming oversaw construction of the current Barnstable County Correctional Facility, completed in Bourne in 2004.
When the correctional facility moved out of the village, the Sheriff’s Office gave up control of the much- loved “county farm,” a 99-acre former dairy farm established during the 1930s by Sheriff Lauchlan Crocker. Located on Route 6A near the former jail and court complex, the sheriff’s office sold Christmas trees, flowers and vegetables there until 2009. At the time it became too labor intensive and costly for the Sheriff’s Office to transport incarcerated individuals from Bourne to Barnstable.
At the new facility in Bourne, twelve housing units (pods) can accommodate a maximum of 588 male and female individuals. For reference, the Old Jail could house about six individuals, and the Barnstable House of Correction was constructed for 78.
Following statewide trends, Barnstable’s incarceration rate has receded from its peak in the early 2000s. Since 2024, the average census has been around 270.
The philosophies of criminology have shifted with history. Whereas harsh sentencing was once thought to be the most effective way to maintain law and order, it’s now apparent that treatment of the causes of crime — namely addiction and mental illness — and reintegration must be the focus of modern jails if we want to create safer communities. We call this philosophy Public Safety 2.0.
Sheriff Lauchlan Crocker, who created the county farm, was also the first sheriff to live in what today is called The Bridge Center. The stately white clapboard residence housed Barnstable sheriffs from the 1930s until the 1980s, when it became a unit for incarcerated women, and later administrative offices. In 2025, Sheriff Buckley opened it as a community-facing hub to connect formerly-incarcerated, justice-involved and at-risk people with the tools they need to create better lives.