Locate WCC Release Records

WCC Release Paths

The Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center is a regional county correctional facility operated by the Hampden County Sheriff’s Office. It sits in Chicopee, outside Franklin County. An official PREA audit documented that WCC housed pretrial and sentenced women from western Massachusetts, including a small Franklin County population. That supports its place in the Franklin service map. It does not establish that every Franklin case involving a woman belongs at WCC.

A person may leave WCC for the community after bail, recognizance, a court order, time served, sentence expiration, or another lawful discharge. She may instead transfer to another county, MA DOC, a court or probation office, federal authorities, immigration custody, or another legal hold. The WCC release record should state when facility custody ended and what disposition followed. When the criminal case originated in Franklin County, its court docket supplies the related bail, sentence, or supervision order.

Confirm a WCC Release

Begin with placement, not assumptions. FCSO currently describes its Greenfield facility as holding men and women, while the regional audit documents some Franklin placements in Chicopee. The case date and actual custodian decide which records office to contact. The Franklin County released inmate search provides the broader custody sequence when a person’s location is uncertain.

1. Call WCC at 413-730-6800 and ask whether the person is currently held, subject to identification and disclosure limits. Use a full name and any known case or commitment details.
2. If WCC no longer holds the person, ask whether the event was a community release or a transfer. Seek the actual date and time, release category, and any receiving authority.
3. Request the existing physical-release or admission-and-release record from the Hampden County Sheriff’s Office. Ask for the disposition and destination instead of relying only on a “not here” response.
4. Check the Franklin County court docket when the prosecution began there. Look for bail, recognizance, dismissal, sentence, time served, probation, warrants, and later orders.
5. Follow the named receiving system. A transfer does not become community release merely because WCC custody ended.

WCC and the court answer different questions. The facility record identifies the physical custody event. The docket states what the judge or clerk entered in the case. If times differ, keep each label and source intact rather than choosing one as a universal release time.

Note: Massachusetts VINE is documented for MA DOC participation, not as a substitute for a Hampden County WCC release record.

WCC Release Records Contact

The Hampden County Sheriff operates WCC and is the proper starting point for its facility records. Franklin County court clerks retain their own case dockets and orders. FCSO records apply only when Franklin County Sheriff custody was involved, such as a stay at Elm Street or a transfer documented by that office.

The official WCC facility page confirms the operator and facility contact. Ask the records custodian for the existing admission and release record, booking or commitment identifier, actual end of WCC custody, release type, legal hold check, releasing facility, and destination or receiving authority. Include a narrow date range and the Franklin docket number when known.

Do not send the same request to each office without regard to custody. The Franklin court can produce a public docket or order within its limits. WCC can address the physical Chicopee release. Another agency must document a later transfer or discharge from its own custody.

WCC Bail Release Schedule

WCC publishes specific bail procedures that do not apply to the Franklin County jail in Greenfield. Staff process bail at 4 p.m. on weekdays and at 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on weekends. The listed window is a processing schedule, not a promise that each person will leave at that hour. Staff must review the mittimus and search for other legal barriers before release.

The WCC bail release page shows the stated windows, forms of payment, and hold checks.

The captured official page connects the schedule to the mittimus, the bail clerk, and the check for warrants, detainers, or other holds. Those checks explain why payment on one case may not lead to immediate community release.

WCC generally accepts cash. A cashier’s check may be accepted for bail of $10,000 or more depending on the assigned clerk. Personal checks and money orders are not accepted. Staff read the amount and bail-clerk fee from the mittimus, which is the court commitment document for that case. The clerk signs the mittimus after processing.

WCC Release Holds and Monitoring

Paying the amount on one mittimus resolves only that case’s bail. Another mittimus, warrant, detainer, or legal hold can keep the person confined. A detainer is a request or basis for another authority to assume custody. It must be distinguished from a community release.

Electronic monitoring is especially important. When it is imposed as a bail condition, WCC states that the person is held for weekday transport to the court or probation office. The bail event has occurred, but immediate release to the community has not. The WCC record and later supervision or court entry should be read together.

WCC Release Account Funds

Remaining account funds follow a separate pickup process. WCC states that funds can be collected at the public-lobby Inmate Accounts window on weekdays from 8 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 3 p.m., subject to change. That transaction may help someone recover money after a Chicopee release, but it is not legal proof that WCC custody ended.

Keep any account receipt with the person’s other release papers. For formal confirmation, request the facility record showing the actual date, release type, and destination. A Franklin County court entry may support the cause of release, but it does not replace the WCC timestamp.

Note: Confirm the Inmate Accounts window before travel because WCC states that the published pickup hours can change.

Franklin County WCC Release Proof

The official 2019 WCC PREA audit establishes the regional center’s western Massachusetts role and records a small Franklin County population. It is historical evidence of service, not a current placement list. Confirm the date and custodian for each person.

Pretrial

Held while a criminal case is pending, without a final sentence on that case.

Sentenced

Confined under a court judgment for a stated term.

Mittimus

The court commitment document that WCC reads for bail and custody terms.

Physical release record

The facility record of when custody ended and where the person went next.

A Franklin prosecution may appear in Greenfield District Court, Orange District Court, or Franklin County Superior Court. Search the official Massachusetts docket route and contact the appropriate clerk when a docket number is missing. Match the court order to the WCC event. Do not treat the order time as the physical exit time unless the facility record confirms it.

The Franklin County Jail release records page applies when Elm Street, not WCC, was the custodian. The two facilities use different operators, contacts, and release records.

WCC Release and ICE Transfers

Franklin County’s former ICE detention operation closed in 2021, and reporting on the closure states that the last nine immigration detainees were transferred to Plymouth County. That local history is a clear example of custody ending in one place while confinement continues elsewhere. It does not establish that WCC took part in those transfers, and it must not be used to infer the status of a current WCC detainee.

If a WCC record names an immigration transfer, verify the release type and receiving authority first. Then check the ICE Online Detainee Locator System for current immigration custody or a recent release within its limited coverage window. A missing result is not enough to prove community release. Names can differ, data can lag, and older events age out.

Use the same two-record method for any transfer. The WCC transaction proves the end of Hampden County sheriff custody. The receiving agency proves what happened next. Only a disposition that actually records return to the community should be described that way.

WCC Release Record Fields

A narrow request gives the custodian a clear set of existing records to locate. Include the person’s full name, date of birth if known, booking or commitment number if known, approximate WCC dates, and the Franklin County court docket when relevant.

• admission date, admitting authority, and legal status;
• actual date and time WCC custody ended;
• release category and plain-language disposition;
• bail, recognizance, time-served, sentence, or court-order notation;
• any warrant, detainer, other mittimus, or electronic-monitoring condition affecting release; and
• destination or receiving authority after the WCC transaction.

Some material may be redacted under Massachusetts law. Ask for the segregable public portion and the legal basis for any withholding. A records response is stronger than an unsourced assumption drawn from a name disappearing from custody.