Scope and Content: Since 1971 the Executive Office of Human Services (Executive Office of Health and Human Services since 1992) has been responsible through its constitutent agencies for the delivery of a wide range of services to persons with financial, health, social, protective, rehabilitation, and correctional needs. Its role is one of management and fiscal oversight, coordination of interagency planning and program development, and policy analysis.  Series is created by the executive office’s personnel unit to oversee and make appointments to boards and committees reporting to the office.
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by board
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Scope and Content: The State Primary School, opened at the State Almshouse at Monson in 1866 and continuing after the almshouse’s closing in 1872 until 1895, provided lodging, instruction, and employment for dependent and neglected children under age sixteen without settlement in the Commonwealth and some juvenile offenders.  Inmates were placed on trial (often subsequently indentured) with families; per St 1880, c 208, s 1, inmates too young or otherwise handicapped to earn their support were placed on board with families, the state paying attendant costs.  Series was created to monitor program and costs.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
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Scope and Content: Bridgewater, Mass., was the site successively of a State Almshouse (1854-1872) for so-called willing and needlessly dependent paupers, and the State Workhouse (1866-1887), for paupers convicted of misdemeanors as well as paupers generally (from 1872), and incorrigible juveniles (1869-1948). The State Workhouse was renamed the State Farm (1887-1955), which also included a State Farm Hospital for the medical needs of all inmates, as well as locals and poor admitted solely for medical treatment. The change in name was in deference to the admission of insane male paupers (1886), although it was  followed by the admission of aged and physically or mentally infirm inmates of the State Prison (1890). Insane admissions were then limited for a time to criminals (1894), forming a division called the State Asylum for Insane Criminals (1895), which was renamed Bridgewater State Hospital (1909). Units at Bridgewater were later added for female prisoners (1909-1930), so-called defective delinquents (males from 1922, females 1926-1954)–mentally impaired inmates requiring segregation from standard inmate or institutionalized populations–and for drug and alcohol addicts (from 1922, females to 1930 only), eventually mostly voluntary admissions. All Bridgewater State Farm facilities and divisions (including prison, almshouse, insane, and medical hospital functions) were administered by a common superintendent. The running of the State Farm, including industries and extensive agricultural operations, relied on work performed by all capable inmates.
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Scope and Content: The Reformatory Prison for Women was opened in Sherborn in 1877. It was renamed the Reformatory for Women by St 1911, c 181, and because of a redrawn boundary line its fuller designation was changed from the Reformatory for Women at Sherborn to the Reformatory for Women at Framingham by St 1932, c 180, s 24. Under St 1955, c 770 it received its current name, the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Framingham.
Arrangement: In six subseries : Arranged roughly chronologically,  within each subseries alphabetically by inmate name (except see below, subseries 6)
Restrictions: Criminal offender record information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 6, ss 167-178. For conditions of access consult repository 
Notes: Transferred to Archives, 2004-2005 (2005/04 and 2005/41).  A pre-existing incomplete file, 1915-1927, was returned to agency June 1990
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Scope and Content: The Industrial School for Boys at Shirley provided instruction and reformatory treatment for delinquent boys in Massachusetts aged fifteen or older, from 1909 to 1972.  Cash account book shows funds received for and disbursed to school inmates.  Information includes date, inmate name, amounts of receipt and disbursement.  There are also periodic totals of money spent for newspapers and candy.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Restrictions: Youth services client information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 120, s 21. For conditions of access consult repository
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Scope and Content: The Division of Legal Medicine was established in 1956 to provide psychiatric services to courts and correctional institutions and to ensure that persons who came into contact with the criminal justice system received needed mental health care.  St 1967, c 620 established special procedures whereby persons confined at Bridgewater State Hospital pursuant to then MGLA c 123, ss 51, 103-105 (cf. since 1970, ss 5-6, 18), could petition for hearings relative to their confinement.  Bridgewater judicial transfer files were created by the Division of Legal Medicine in the course of carrying out its responsibility for coordinating the transfer of those who, as a result of a judicial hearing, were to be transferred from Bridgewater, a maximum security facility, to other state hospitals for the mentally ill.
Restrictions: Mental health client information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 123, s 36. For conditions of access consult repository
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Scope and Content: Bristol County Hospital, formerly known as Bristol County Tuberculosis Hospital, one of the Massachusetts county institutions established for the treatment of tuberculosis in accordance with MGLA c 111, ss 78-90, was closed pursuant to St 1968, c 487, which abolished the hospital trustees and the Bristol County Hospital District, and authorized the sale of the hospital’s assets.   Client case files were transferred to Lakeville Hospital, a state institution for the treatment of tuberculosis and chronic diseases.  Bristol County Hospital had treated not only tuberculosis patients, but also those with emphysema, cancer, heart disease, and other chronic disorders.  Case files contain personal and medical data on patients from admission to discharge.
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by surname
Restrictions: Personal medical information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 4, s 7, d 26(c) and c 66A. For conditions of access consult repository
Notes: Transferred to Archives from Lakeville Hospital, June 1992
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Scope and Content: Since 1971 the Executive Office of Human Services (Executive Office of Health and Human Services since 1992) has been responsible through its constitutent agencies for the delivery of a wide range of services to persons with financial, health, social, protective, rehabilitation, and correctional needs. Its role is one of management and fiscal oversight, coordination of interagency planning and program development, and policy analysis.  MGLA c 6A, s 4 rquires the office to review and act on budgetary and other fiscal matters for its agencies.  Series was created to aid in carrying out this responsibility.
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Scope and Content: Pondville Hospital was operated by the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health from 1927 to 1981 as a state facility to conduct cancer research and to treat cancer patients.  Its superintendent prepared a budget annually to be submitted to the Dept. of Public Health.  Budget files include materials submitted to the superintendent by various staff, preliminary requests, and a listing of items requested in various categories such as staff, equipment, building maintenance, and construction.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Transferred to Archives, Feb. 1982
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Scope and Content: Bridgewater, Mass., was the site successively of a State Almshouse (1854-1872) for so-called willing and needlessly dependent paupers, and the State Workhouse (1866-1887), for paupers convicted of misdemeanors as well as paupers generally (from 1872), and incorrigible juveniles (1869-1948). The State Workhouse was renamed the State Farm (1887-1955), which also included a State Farm Hospital for the medical needs of all inmates, as well as locals and poor admitted solely for medical treatment. The change in name was in deference to the admission of insane male paupers (1886), although it was  followed by the admission of aged and physically or mentally infirm inmates of the State Prison (1890). Insane admissions were then limited for a time to criminals (1894), forming a division called the State Asylum for Insane Criminals (1895), which was renamed Bridgewater State Hospital (1909). Units at Bridgewater were later added for female prisoners (1909-1930), so-called defective delinquents (males from 1922, females 1926-1954)–mentally impaired inmates requiring segregation from standard inmate or institutionalized populations–and for drug and alcohol addicts (from 1922, females to 1930 only), eventually mostly voluntary admissions. All Bridgewater State Farm facilities and divisions (including prison, almshouse, insane, and medical hospital functions) were administered by a common superintendent. The running of the State Farm, including industries and extensive agricultural operations, relied on work performed by all capable inmates. Also located on the Bridgewater campus, 1954-1970, was the Institute for Juvenile Guidance, established as a security unit at the Industrial School for Boys, Shirley, in 1951, then transferred to Bridgewater (housed in the quarters recently vacated by the female defective delinquents unit) but remaining under the control of the Division of Youth Service (Dept. of  Education) (Dept. of Youth Services from 1969). –In 1955 the Massachusetts correctional system was reorganized, so that the State Farm at Bridgewater became the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Bridgewater, commonly called MCI Bridgewater. With this change, Bridgewater’s admittance of misdemeanor convicts (since 1866), state charges (i.e., almshouse paupers, since 1872), and aged or infirm state prisoners (since 1890) was terminated, leaving the prison population (i.e., aside from Bridgewater State Hospital) almost entirely those with alcohol or drug-related convictions. In 1958, a specialized unit serving the whole state corrections system, the Massachusetts Treatment Center of the Sexually Dangerous, was added.  The population of MCI Bridgewater changed again with St 1971 c 1076, which abolished the crime of public intoxication, limiting drug and alcohol admissions to civil commitments, voluntary or otherwise; also abolished (per St 1970, c 888, s 6) was the by then controversial unit for defective delinquents (operating since 1922). The Bridgewater State Hospital serving the insane was placed under separate administration in 1987, the Old Colony Correctional Center opened in 1987, and in 1990 the MCI addiction center was placed under the Southeastern Correctional Center (SECC), which had opened in 1976. Since by 1990 the Treatment Center of the Sexually Dangerous had also become a separate unit, at that point the existence of MCI Bridgewater as an administrative entity ended. After SECC’s closing in 2002, addiction treatment was provided at the Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center. A Massachusetts Boot Camp for youthful offenders was located at Bridgewater from 1992 until after 2000.
Restrictions: Some restrictions apply
Notes: Transferred to Archives by Southeastern Correctional Center, Bridgewater, 2002
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