In The News

Undeterred by critics, Cabral forges on

Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral sat in a muggy classroom at Roxbury’s Boston Latin Academy, talking to a small group of twenty-somethings about crime and describing her concern about the startling rise in violent activity by women.

Suddenly Cabral, who at 6 foot 1 can look imposing, caught herself.

“Don’t you just love talking to me,’’ she said, laughing. “People don’t even want to talk to me at parties because this is my whole life.’’

Eight years ago, Cabral became a symbol of the New Boston, an African-American woman named the 30th sheriff of Suffolk County, heading an agency formed in a Colonial era, one that had fallen into disrepute. The department, which oversees a prison, a jail, and the delivery of court documents, was mired in scandal over the physical and sexual abuse of inmates by guards. The hiring system was rife with patronage and was being run by managers with little to no experience in corrections.

Cabral Hopes For Second Term

The Suffolk Country Sheriff makes plans for the future and reflects on the past - It’s an old story now, Andrea Cabral’s start as Suffolk Country Sheriff.

It seems everyone remembers when Cabral, the first woman, and first African American, was elected in 2004, after being appointed in 2003 by Rep. Governor Jane Swift. Everyone recalls the promises she made then-to be transparent, fair and hard working. To practice ethics, not patronage.

And with Cabral at the helm, the old sheriff’s department, rife with politically motivated hiring, ineffective programs and prisoner abuse, has become a thing of the past. Instead, re-entry programs, education classes and partnerships are now the norm, and Cabral spends her days in her office or attending events around the Boston, meeting the youth she hopes she’ll never see in her correctional facility.

Friday's intriguing people

Andrea Cabral - The sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, says that, to keep people from returning to prison, they need vocational and educational skills and the health care that they were not getting before they were incarcerated.

In November 2002, Cabral became the first female in the commonwealth's history and also the first African-American in the county to hold the position. She is responsible for both the jail and the prison in the county – which means more than 1,000 corrections officers, investigators, educators, health care providers, caseworkers, managers and administrative staff who watch over some 2,700 offenders who are in the system on any given day.

Cabral is scheduled as one of the featured speakers at the 2010 National Organization for Women Conference beginning Friday in Boston, Massachusetts. Cabral told CNN on Thursday that she'll focus her remarks on the issues that are unique to women in prison.

Sheriff Cabral runs on record of reform in re-election bid

When Andrea J. Cabral took over the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department in November 2002, it was an institution in chaos.

Cabral, a career prosecutor, was appointed by then-acting Gov. Jane Swift to complete the term of the previous sheriff, Richard Rouse, who had taken early retirement just weeks before a special commission released a report showing an agency riddled with unqualified patronage hires, guards who extorted or traded favors with inmates, sexual abuse of female inmates and beatings of men.

In an interview at the South Bay House of Correction last week, Cabral recalled that her early reform efforts had met with surprisingly little resistance. “I think the majority dealt with it very, very well,” she said, “but you always have a core group of people who are heavily invested in keeping things the way they are, either because they benefit personally or the system the way it exists just creates a higher comfort level for them to function.”

Sheriff aims to make jail beginning, not end

The sheriff of Suffolk County is, by definition, a jailer. So how come Andrea Cabral speaks in the language of a social scientist, psychologist, psychiatrist and, oh yes, the former prosecutor she once was?

The simple answer is: she can’t help it; she’s very bright. The other answer is, the residents of Boston and Suffolk County are luckier than they realize.