SUFFOLK COUNTY SHERIFF ANDREA J. CABRAL, ESQ.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

 

Andrea J. Cabral, Esq. was sworn in on November 29, 2002 as the 30th Sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts.  She is the first female sheriff in the Commonwealth’s history.  Originally appointed by former Governor Jane Swift, she was elected to a full term in 2004 and re-elected in 2010.  She brings an extensive legal background and a commitment to public safety to her position.
   
Sheriff Cabral is responsible for the operation of the House of Correction, the Suffolk County Jail and the Civil Process Division. The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department is the largest sheriff’s department in the Northeast and the 30th largest in the United States.  It has over 1000 employees, including executive managers, corrections officers, investigators, educators, health care providers, caseworkers and administrative staff, whose primary responsibility is to provide safe care, custody, control and rehabilitative support for approximately 2,700 offenders daily. The average operating budget for the Department is $96 million. 

Sheriff Cabral is a member of the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association.  Following a two-year term as Vice President, she served as its President from 2008 – 2009.

            Sheriff Cabral’s career in public service spans 24 years.  Her legal career began in 1986 where she worked as a staff attorney in the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department at the Charles Street Jail, preparing and arguing motions for bail reduction in the Suffolk Superior Court. Subsequently, she served as an assistant district attorney in both the District and Superior Courts in the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office from 1987-1991.

            From 1991-1993, Sheriff Cabral was an Assistant Attorney General, where she worked in the Torts Division of the Government Bureau and the Civil Rights Division of the Public Protection Bureau.  Sheriff Cabral then began work at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in 1993 under District Attorney Ralph C. Martin III. From 1993-1994, she was director of the Roxbury District Court Family Violence Project. As director, she prosecuted domestic violence cases (including the county’s first stalking case) and helped to establish new administrative policies and procedures for the processing of such cases in the Roxbury District Court. In March 1994, Sheriff Cabral became chief of the Domestic Violence Unit where she supervised and trained district and superior court staff in the preparation and prosecution of major domestic violence felony cases. She also indicted and prosecuted major domestic violence felony cases in Suffolk Superior Court. In 1998, Sheriff Cabral was promoted to chief of District Courts and Community Prosecutions.  In this position, she developed district court policies, staff supervision and evaluation tools, training curricula and case management practices in Suffolk County’s eight district courts and the Boston Municipal Court.  Sheriff Cabral also oversaw the staffing and supervision of all district court community prosecutions programs, which included the Safe Neighborhood Initiatives and Prosecutor in Police Stations (PIPS) Programs.

            Sheriff Cabral’s published works include Obtaining, Enforcing and Defending Ch.209A Restraining Orders in Massachusetts and co-authorship of the article Same Gender Domestic Violence: Strategies for Change in Creating Courtroom Accessibility. 

            In addition to receiving numerous awards and honors throughout the years, in 2007, Sheriff Cabral was named an Eisenhower Fellow and traveled to Australia for a month-long study of their criminal justice system.  She is on the Board of the Mass Mentoring Partnership serves on the National Re-entry Resource Center’s Advisory Committee.

In 2010, Sheriff Cabral was one of 18 experts appointed to the Office of Justice Programs’ Science Advisory Board (SAB) by United States Attorney General Eric Holder.  The SAB was created to bridge the gap between research and practice in the criminal justice fields.  It provides an extra-agency review of and recommendations for Office of Justice Programs research, statistics, and grant programs, and ensures that programs and activities are scientifically sound and pertinent to policymakers and practitioners.

            Sheriff Cabral is a graduate of Boston College and Suffolk University Law School.