Nearly everyone in jails and prisons will return to their communities. What happens while they are in custody — and when they are released — matters not only to them, but to all of us. Releasing people without support is not a strategy for public safety, it’s a recipe for failure. 

Join Barnstable County Sheriff Donna D. Buckley, the second elected female sheriff in Massachusetts history, to learn how she is transforming the Barnstable County Correctional Facility into a place where incarcerated individuals find education, treatment, and reentry support so that they have the tools to rebuild their lives.  Elected in 2022, Sheriff Buckley has created an in-house treatment team. With a staff of educators, treatment specialists, counselors and community volunteers, she has added more than three dozen classes and programs to the facility itself.  

The work doesn’t end inside the jail.  She has opened the Cape’s first re-entry center to support justice involved individuals transitioning back to the community. Because community understanding is crucial, Sheriff Buckley invites community members to meet incarcerated individuals through the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice.  Her approach is founded on data. The underlying factor in over 70 % of crimes is addiction, mental health struggles and children trauma. Addressing these issues is how we will change behavior. Dehumanizing and punishment alone only make them worse.  Come meet Sheriff Buckley, whose leadership is changing the justice landscape of Cape Cod and beyond. 

Raised in Peabody, Sheriff Buckley received her Juris Doctorate from Suffolk University Law School. She began her career as the in-house counsel for the National Association of Government Employees/International Brotherhood of Police Officers. After running the Law Office of Donna DeSimone Buckley for nine years, she worked at the Massachusetts Teachers Association delivering legal services to the members of the teachers’ union in the areas of collective bargaining, grievances, arbitrations, and employment disputes. Sheriff Buckley taught Criminal Law and related courses at Massasoit Community College in Brockton and Massachusetts Bay Community College in Framingham.  In 2018, she became the general counsel for the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office. 

Learn more at 10 a.m. on Sunday, August 30, 2026. All are welcome.

• At the Chapel in the Pines, 220 Samoset Road in Eastham.  Doors open at 9:30.
• Also on Zoom via this Zoom program link.