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.

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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