Carmen C. Massimiano, Jr., was born and brought up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He is a graduate of Pittsfield High School; holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from St. Anselm’s College in Manchester, New Hampshire and also holds a Master of Science Degree in Criminal Justice Administration from American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Sheriff Massimiano was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from North Adams State College, where he was founding Chairman of the Board of Trustees and served in that post for five years. He served a second term on the Board of Trustees of the college, which is now named Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
Sheriff Massimiano has been Sheriff of Berkshire County since November of 1978, and is now the longest serving Sheriff in the history of Berkshire County. Prior to his appointment as Sheriff of Berkshire County, he was the Chief Probation Officer of Berkshire Superior Court.
Sheriff Massimiano has served on numerous boards and agencies throughout the city, the county and the Commonwealth. He is past President of the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association. He also serves on the National Sheriffs Committee on Jails and Detention. Sheriff Massimiano served six terms on the Pittsfield School Committee, including eight years as chairman.
He is also chairman of the Pittsfield Licensing Board. He is a former longtime member and Chairman of the Pittsfield Community Development Board, and is a longtime member of the Pittsfield School Building Needs Commission.
Sheriff Massimiano has long had a community service program that serves the thirty towns and two cities of Berkshire County on a daily basis. He is actively involved in the Community Triad program, which works with local police departments, the District Attorney’s Office and senior service agencies to address safety concerns of the Berkshire County elderly population.
Sheriff Massimiano also operates the Berkshire County Sheriff’s Communications Center in Pittsfield, providing fire, police and ambulance emergency and non-emergency communications for twenty-six cities and towns.
Sheriff Massimiano spearheaded the effort to build a new $39.1 million, 288-cell Jail and House of Correction for Berkshire County. The modern, direct supervision correctional facility was formally dedicated Jan. 5, 2001, on a 25-acre site in Pittsfield. During this process, he oversaw the transition from the overcrowded, 1870-era jail that employed 79 full-time staff to a new, state-of-the-art facility that employs more than 200 full-time staff. At the same time, he oversaw the Sheriff’s Office transition from a county to a state-funded agency.
As chief law enforcement officer in Berkshire County, Sheriff Massimiano oversees an average daily inmate population of more than 300. In addition to the operation of the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction, the Community Corrections Center and the Communications Center, he oversees operation of a Juvenile Resource Center at the old Jail and House of Correction, the Sheriff’s Office Uniform Division, a Civil Process Division and the Berkshire County Underwater Search & Rescue Team.
Committed to quality health care for inmates and staff, Sheriff Massimiano was the first Berkshire County Sheriff to appoint a full-time medical director, who oversees a department that has been commended and accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. The Sheriff also led the effort in 1999 to make the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction smoke-free, a policy that has been carried over to the new Jail and House of Correction campus and all Sheriff’s Office facilities.
Having established the Sheriff’s Office watchwords of “professionalism, integrity and decency,” Sheriff Massimiano has instituted numerous education and treatment programs at the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction. The most recent is the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) program, an intensive, federally funded program for inmates who are motivated to change their addictive behavior and become more productive members of the community upon their release from incarceration.
Sheriff Massimiano was also the first Berkshire County Sheriff to offer open and competitive written examinations for correctional officer candidates, and was also the first to conduct Basic Recruit Training Academies in the county.
Sheriff Massimiano’s many charitable activities are well known throughout Berkshire County, and his Sheriff’s Office activities have raised many thousands of dollars for scholarship aid, tuition assistance and other contributions to the community. In 2001, he received the “Catholic Schools Recognition Award” from the Catholic Diocese of Springfield for his efforts, and the efforts of his Sheriff’s Deputies, to raise $100,000 in tuition assistance for students to attend St. Joseph Central High School in Pittsfield.
Sheriff Massimiano and his wife, Linda, reside in Pittsfield.
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