The Sheriff is in the news again, this time the national news. On September 15, 2026 he led a delegation of Sheriffs to testify in Congress, denouncing New York State’s new law that prohibits formal agreements with ICE. This endangers, he tells everyone, the county, the state and the nation. Along with other New York Sheriffs he demands full power to cooperate with ICE and Federal authorities as he sees fit. It was compelling political theater in support of Trump’s war against migrant workers.
What captured much of the media however was a forceful exchange over a women’s charges of an exploitative relationship following Akshar’s investigation of the homicide of her son. Akshar called the woman’s allegations “fictitious and slanderous.” When U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman challenged Akshar’s credibility to represent law enforcement, Akshar was enraged: “Only a degenerate politician like you would bring this up at a hearing like this!” Closer to home Akshar’s work with ICE has caused him much trouble, ranging from disrupted town halls through protests at the jail to continually contested county legislative meetings.
Legislative Meeting Sept 19, 2025
Give credit where it is due: his support for mass policing, incarceration, deportation and the President are consistent and longstanding, appearing at Trump rallies many years ago.
And with his own spin doctor-the first appointment he made when elected Sheriff-we can expect to see more aggressive and continuous appearances by Akshar. But will Broome County buy it? Will legislators continue to support the Sheriff and these policies in the face of public revulsion with ICE? A test is soon coming: the 2027 county budget.
Here Comes the Budget, Again
The County Executive had little to say in his presentation on the proposed 2027 Broome County budget about county policing and incarcerating residents. Other than praising the Sheriff and his good works, Jason Garner was quiet on the Sheriff’s budget, speaking only about a little more money for bullet-proof vests for law enforcement officers. And who could be against that?
But take a closer look: it’s a bit duplicitous. The Sheriff’s budget surpasses $60 million for the first time. The jail budget increases by over 10% to at least $42 million. As in past years there is more money for jail salaries and benefits ($31 million) including $4.9 million for overtime.
More Bearcats!
Dig deeper and there are further surprises: Broome County gets a new Bearcat! No, not a star recruit for the local State University of New York’s Bearcat athletic teams, but $360,000 for another armored personnel carrier (Capital Budget, p.13). Yes, it’s another one: this is the third one the Sheriff’s office has added to his fleet, following the 2019 Casspir (formerly used to wage war against Black South Africans), a 2020 Bearcat (purchased with commissary profits legally required to be spent on the rehabilitation of incarcerated residents no less)—and there is at least one more in the county, the Binghamton Police Department’s Bearcat, purchased in 2019 with then State Senator Akshar’s assistance.
The Bearcat joins an impressive stream of war-fighting equipment: military-grade transport trucks, enhanced Humvees, sound cannons, multiple surveillance drones and so on. What have multiple armored vehicles been used for other than policing protests, poking holes in windows of parolee’s homes, and entertaining children at county show-n-tells? We don’t know. Are fevered heads envisioning fighting an invasion from Canada across Lake America?
AI generated
Build it and they will come?
Looking forward the county budget tells us to envision higher jail costs, more costly incarceration of Federal and ICE prisoners, and jail expansion. In his budget proposal the Sheriff estimates an increase in the jail population from 340 in 2025 to 410 in 2026, and on to 460 in 2027 (County Recommended Budget p.460). Costs rise for related food, medical treatment, hospitalization, transportation, and other needs of poor residents.
This is an old story, familiar to students of mass incarceration: build it and they will fill it. Data-driven studies show that construction of prisons propelled mass incarceration through the 1980s and 1990s, especially in impoverished rural communities (and especially Black communities).[1] Largely ignored was the boom to build jails exemplified by Broome County, fed in part by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, sponsored by Senator Strom Thurmond and championed by Senator Joe Biden, which led to local county jails becoming depositories for federal prisoners including ICE detainees.[2]
Broome followed these trends: when IBM fled the area 18,000 jobs evaporated, poverty increased, the local population declined, and incarceration accelerated. In the late 1970s the Broome jail housed fewer than 50 persons, tripling to 150 in the late 1980s. A brand new jail was then funded, located on land outside the city donated by the State University of New York.
It opened in 1996 to hold 536 persons. Jail numbers rose to 500. In 2014 a study by a jail architect firm was commissioned by the county and projected the need for a 710-bed jail. In 2016 Democrat and Republican legislators joined forces to vote $6.8 million, over a protest in county chambers, to expand the jail to a capacity of 600.
But then numbers fell. Ten years of community and statewide protest produced criminal justice reforms that reversed the drumbeat for mass incarceration. While local politicians, billionaires, and correctional officers facing felonies had long easily gotten bail and avoided the jail, other local, poorer residents now could as well. Jail numbers, excluding Federal detainees, fell to barely 300 persons, paralleling even longer and steadier falls in crime rates.
Then came the local blowback. In 2023 a new Sheriff and District Attorney arrived in town, and two years later, came a new President. Drug wars, crime panics, a mania over migrants, and funding flowed again. Jail numbers have been steadily increasing, reinforcing Broome County’s claim to having the highest incarceration rate of all 62 New York counties.
And then came ICE
Trump’s war against migrant workers was expected to help keep the jail full. Not because of the Sheriff personally signing a 287g agreement with ICE to serve detainee warrants, but by simply continuing a 2002 agreement to house Federal prisoners which had long been used to sustain county cooperation with ICE and house ICE detainees. It is this agreement with the U.S. Marshalls Service that conservative New York State Sheriffs and Akshar defend. New York State’s new law against cooperation with ICE may lead to the termination of housing all federal prisoners, like the local dairy worker held at county expense for six months in the Broome County Jail on solely immigration charges. And lots of Federal funding is at risk for Sheriffs. Indeed Sheriffs report they make money from the Federal reimbursement of $110/day per person. Among the Sheriff’s 2027 Objectives in his budget statement: “Maximize available housing capacity to generate revenue through agreements with the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and other New York State counties” (p.236). By Sheriff Akshar’s own formula, however, the cost of boarding in a person is $274/day, meaning the county loses $164 for every Federal detainee every day. For 2025 this totaled $2,860,000.
Who Profits?
Where the Sheriff does turn a profit is on charges for phone calls, tablets, and commissary sales. At the June 18, 2026 meeting of the county legislature community activists and families of the incarcerated rallied against the proposal to renew the Sheriff’s monopoly agreement with the out of state GTL corporation; up for a vote was a contract that would dramatically increase the prices on phone, video, text and tablet use. When questioned by puzzled legislators, the Sheriff simply said Federal law dictated it and he needed to make more money. Fake news, said Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier in its press release. Why are calls to stay in contact with family free in state prisons and other New York State jails, but cost 12 cents per minute in Broome County? Infrastructure and running costs run around 1.5 cents at best. Why does the Sheriff charge a 60% profit on every call? For the first time five legislators voted against a budget item for the Sheriff.
One might ask the same of other jail contracts.
Where do the 44% profits from commissary profits go? Why was the medical provider overpaid by at least $600,000? What will be the cost of two looming class action lawsuits over salmonella poisoning of 320 persons, with 12 sent to the local hospital, by the jail’s out of state private food contractor? Successive county audits in 2024 and 2025 continue to report the lack of legally registered contracts and the inability to trace prices, sales, expenditures and revenues. No member of the public could pose these questions to legislators much the sheriff at recent county meetings.
There is only one scheduled chance a year for persons to speak while the legislators listen (but don’t respond) Thursday, October 22nd at 5:00 p.m. 6th Floor, County Office Building, 60 Hawley Street,
Given recent protests by the audience this past year over justice, housing, and health expenditures, expect a long meeting. The public has much to say.
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[1] John Eason, Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto & Prison Proliferation (University of Chicago Press, 2017).
[2] “If You Build It,” Vera Institute of Justice, accessed September 26, 2026, https://www.vera.org/in-our-backyards-stories/if-you-build-it.
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