Hodgson was born about 1954 and grew up in a large Catholic family in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He graduated from a Catholic military high school in Washington and attended Xavier University in Ohio for one year studying accounting. Hodgson worked as a police detective in Ocean City, Maryland for six years, resigning in the early-1980's to work in his brother's landscaping business. He moved to Massachusetts in the 1985 and worked in an office supply company in Quincy, Massachusetts. He left to work in another brother's accounting firm.
City Council
Hodgson was elected to the New Bedford City Council in 1988. He served until resigning to become Sheriff in 1997; at the time of his resignation, he was the council's only Republican.
Sheriff
Hodgson was appointed Sheriff of Bristol County by then-Governor William F. Weld on May 21st, 1997. He won his first election for a full six-year term in 1998 and moved to Fall River the next year. He garnered press for charging inmates for room and board, medical services and hair cuts while in jail and for getting rid of television and the weight room. He instituted chain gangs. In the most recent election of 2016 he ran unopposed.
Hodgson first made waves by offering to send Bristol County inmates to help build President Donald J. Trump's proposed border wall. He was later invited to speak to the House of Representatives on issues relating to sanctuary cities, stating that elected officials in such jurisdictions should be placed under arrest.
On May 1, 2020, three Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees were hospitalized amidst a violent incident with correctional officers during testing for COVID-19. Hodgson was on site during the incident and the Bristol County Sheriff's departments reported more than $25,000 to the facility. The next day, Joe Kennedy III called on an independent investigation of the violence. Following Kennedy's statement, Sentators Warren and Markey and Representatives Keating and Kennedy signed a joint letter calling for an investigation, stating: "We are alarmed by reports of the events of Friday, May 1, in Unit B of the Bristol County House of Correction’s C. Carlos Carreiro Immigration Detention Center. There are conflicting accounts about what occurred, and we believe that there must be a full, independent investigation by an external entity." The ACLU of Massachusetts is suing the Bristol county Sheriff's Office after they received a denial of accessing records related to the May 1 incident.
Trump Re-Election Campaign
In November 2019, President Trump appointed Hodgson as Honorary Chair of Trump's 2020 Massachusetts re-election campaign. The announcement was made by MassGOP National Committeeman Ron Kaufman at a state committee meeting.
