DA FIRM BUT FLEXIBLE ON
Rollins seeks cops’ take on nonviolent crime
Newly elected Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins created controversy during her campaign when she announced a list of crimes she wouldn’t prosecute in office, and now she’s ready to follow through on that plan but is flexible on how to execute it.
Rollins told the Herald she is standing firm with her 15-item “no prosecute” list she announced during the election. The list includes crimes from shoplifting and trespassing to drug possession and resisting arrest — what she calls nonviolent and quality of life crimes.
“We have not budged and we will not budge,” Rollins said.
Her stance is that the District Attorney’s Office needs to put its focus and resources on violent offenders in order to keep the community safe.
“I think there is a lot that we are going to shift with what are we focusing most of our attention and resources on,” Rollins said.
But, her list isn’t set in stone.
“I am reasonable ... everything is a negotiation,” Rollins said. “So we are going to be OK, we are going to work our way through it.”
Since the election, she has been meeting with Commissioner William G. Gross, Boston Police Patrolman’s Association President Michael O’Leary and other law enforcement officials to discuss the best implementation of her plans.
“I will be involving law enforcement and asking for their opinions,” Rollins said. “We will have to reach across the table because there might be things that I was adamant about, but after meeting with law enforcement I might say I hadn’t thought about that or that’s an unintended consequence that I hadn’t anticipated. How can we adapt so that it doesn't happen or do I have to abandon this completely?”
The goal, she said, is still to help create diversionary paths while protecting the cops and the community.
“For some reason we are penalizing people for situations that oftentimes they never asked for,” Rollins said. “Certainly if there is violence involved I want to move my resources to the more violent crimes, whereby we can make sure we are keeping communities safe.”
Instead of jail for everyone, Rollins said, she wants to look at other ways to hold individuals accountable for their actions. This includes things such as community service, graduation from substance abuse programs, civil stay-aways and more.
“We hold people accountable all the time in ways that don’t involve incarceration for these very lowlevel crimes,” Rollins said.
“I want us to not just think of prosecuting but also problem-solving in the DA’s office,” Rollins said. “By the time they make it to Superior Court, there’s a possibility of redemption but those are far more serious crimes and there are less sort of elasticity to options or diversionary tactics. So I want district courts to be where I spend a lot of my time and energy trying to to get people to the root cause of problems and focus more on these violent crimes.”