Community Affairs

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Dear Citizens,

Ask any law enforcement official what the critical elements are to reducing violent crime over the long-term, and no doubt, you will hear that more effective intervention and prevention efforts are critical.

However, experience tells us that the most successful crime prevention and focused successful prosecution efforts, probably more than anything else, require honest-to-goodness cooperation between the public and our criminal justice system.

District Attorney Sutter recognizes that intervention and prevention resources to support our community’s most at-risk youth and neighborhoods, as well as on-going dialog with the community-at-large, is as important to the safety and well-being of our County, as it is to our office prosecuting criminals.

This is exactly why District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter has established the “new” Community Affairs Unit.  Through the new Community Affairs Unit, we hope to significantly enhance the role our office can play in offering effective prevention and intervention services and supports for our most at risk youth, in addition to promoting strong community-wide support and collaboration for  increased public safety efforts throughout Bristol County, with a focus on those neighborhoods impacted by gun and gang violence.

DA Sutter, along with other key members of his Leadership Team, are currently working on developing a series of community-based intervention and prevention initiatives targeting at risk youth and neighborhoods that we hope to unveil later this summer.

Please take the time to come back and visit this site often, to learn about the ways that the Community Affairs staff and I can assist you and your community. We look forward to working with you.

«The Volunteer Initiative«

On October 3, 2007, District Attorney Sutter unveiled an office-wide volunteer initiative that he and his top staff members had been working on for several months. The first of its kind initiative has already reverberated across the county, with publications like The Herald News calling on more governmental agencies to follow DA Sutter's lead.

District Attorney Sutter promised during the campaign to do more with Community Outreach and to spend less money from the District Attorney’s budget doing it. By creating partnerships that will team his 50 prosecutors and six senior staff members with 25 different volunteer-based social service organizations, the District Attorney has followed through on that pledge. The volunteer initiative affects programs in the Attleboro, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton areas.

“This volunteer initiative is equally important to all of the other initiative we have embarked upon at the District Attorney’s Office this year; initiatives like unsolved homicides, major violators and wiretaps. The modern District Attorney’s Office is about more than just going into courtrooms and getting convictions, and tough sentences. It is about taking action to prevent crime,” DA Sutter said.

Through the first year of the initiative, the district attorrney's prosecutors, managers and other staffers have spent more than 2,800 hours volunteering their time with 35 different agencies throughout Bristol County.

To celebrate the fact that his office members have gone above and beyond their individual 26 hour volunteer commitment during the past year and to continue to push the volunteer initiative forward, the District Attorney’s Office held a Volunteer Fair in late September, 2008 at the Wamsutta Club in New Bedford.  Approximately 25 social service and youth mentoring agencies had booths set up at the fair, allowing office prosecutors and managers a chance to discover what each agency specializes in.  The office staffers will have an opportunity to either stay with the agency they volunteered with during the past year or connect with a new group they learn about during the Volunteer Fair.

Through the first year of the program, more than 80 members of Sutter’s office have volunteered their time after work hours.  Several members of Sutter’s office have also volunteered their time to assist the district attorney at  the various free youth sports clinics held in each of the county’s four cities and at other special events during the past 12 months.  District Attorney Sutter promised to do more with Community Outreach and spend less money from the District Attorney’s budget doing it. Through the volunteer initiative, the numerous free youth sports clinics and the constant presence of his office at neighborhood association meetings throughout the county, the District Attorney has followed through on that pledge.  During his first full fiscal year in office, District Attorney Sutter has slashed spending in the Community Affairs Unit by more than 65 percent, while also doing much more with the unit in this era of limits on governmental spending.  By reducing the amount of taxpayer money spent in Community Affairs while also offering more services than ever before, District Attorney Sutter has been able to add 10 more prosecutors into Bristol County’s courtrooms.

“I am very proud of what the prosecutors and managers with my office have done in our communities over the past year.  They embraced my idea about volunteering after work hours with enthusiasm and then reached out to our communities in a variety of activities with verve.  I am also proud to have been able, through their efforts, to follow through on another campaign promise,” District Attorney Sutter said.

Click here to read DA Sutter's speech announcing the initiative

Click here to view the organizations we assist through volunteerism

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