Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 40, § 34 (2026)

Town; erection and maintenance of lockup; penalty for noncompliance

✓ current as of July 2026

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Section 34. Each town containing more than five thousand inhabitants shall, and any town may, maintain a secure and convenient lockup to which persons arrested without a warrant may be committed; and a magistrate may commit, for further examination, a prisoner charged with a bailable offence and not recognizing, to the lockup in the town where the prisoner was arrested or to the lockup in a town where the court is held, if he considers it safe and commodious and that expense may be saved thereby. If a town neglects to provide and maintain a lockup as herein required, it shall forfeit ten dollars for each month during which such neglect continues.

For the purposes of this section, the word ''maintain'' shall include the provision of any prescribed medication and nutritionally adequate meals to a person committed to such lockup. Compliance with this section shall be enforced pursuant to section twenty-one of chapter one hundred and eleven.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 3 cases, 1982–2005 · leading case: Boston Gas Co. v. City of Boston, 433 N.E.2d 483 (Mass. App. Ct. 1982).

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Boston Gas Co. v. City of Boston, 433 N.E.2d 483 (Mass. App. Ct. 1982). “At all times material to this action the defendant, pursuant to the requirements of G. L. c. 40, § 34, and G. L. c. 126, § 33, has operated and maintained a lockup facility known as the Charles Street jail.”

Foley v. Commonwealth, 709 N.E.2d 794 (Mass. 1999). “We also do not decide whether notice of the proceedings at the facility, including notice of the time at which the sessions are held, was constitutionally adequate. The plaintiff did not raise this issue in its fullest form before the single justice, and the record is not…”

Commonwealth v. Clay, 837 N.E.2d 725 (Mass. App. Ct. 2005). “Because a cell block in a police station is only intended to hold prisoners who have not yet been committed to a correctional facility, it does not qualify as a penal institution.”

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