James Baum, Special Assistant Attorney General

This office continues to implement the first community prosecution office located in the Mt. Hope neighborhood of Rhode Island. The community prosecutor focused much of his efforts on 2002 on identifying, surveiling, and prosecuting the top 20 repeat offenders living in the neighborhood in cooperation with the program's multi-disciplinary task force consisting of Providence Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the United States Attorney's Office, the Department of Correction's Special Investigations Unit and Probation and Parole. The task force, named Full Court Press, also focused on narcotics and car theft activities, as well as gun trafficking.

As a result of the task force's efforts, the Community Prosecutor was able to incarcerate more than 10 repeat offenders, including a 10 year sentence after a violation hearing for an individual on assault with a dangerous weapon charge. This same individual is suspected of committing the murder of a well-known young man who lived in the Mt. Hope neighborhood.

The Community Prosecutor, in cooperation with the Providence Plan, created a system to graphically review and detect all arrests and incidents occurring in the neighborhood. These maps were used to depict crime hot spots based on location (street and intersection), time, and type of offence. The Community Prosecution also established an internal system to vertically prosecute all crimes occurring in Mt. Hope, or involving targeted repeat offenders.

The Community Prosecutor continued his work with the Attorney General's Nuisance Task Force to improve the quality of life in Mt. Hope, including working with a property owner to erect a retaining wall to permanently close a cut-through from the neighborhood park long used by narcotics dealers as an escape route from police. The Community Prosecutor also led monthly community meetings and participated in food and toy drives. Additionally, the Community Prosecutor began the initial stages of organizing a large-scale Toy Gun Bash in response to community concern about youth violence. Designed to be scalable to the State, the Toy Gun Bash will be centered around a toy gun bashing machine and will bring together the community, government, and the business sector to teach children about the dangers of guns. Finally, the program established a working relationship with the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office in Portland, Oregon. The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office has shared valuable techniques from its 15-year experience with community prosecution. The office also maintained its efforts in the West Side and Elmwood neighborhoods of Providence. Prosecutors and the Office of the Crime Prevention Specialist placed a heavy emphasis on responding to community concerns about gang violence. The office participated in numerous gang violence summits, formed community watch groups, worked closely with the Southeast Asian community, and led gang violence seminars in neighborhoods elementary and middle schools. In addition, prosecutors, in conjunction with the Nuisance Task Force worked with property owners to close two houses in the West Broadway neighborhood that had been taken over by gangs. The community feedback from the closure of these two houses was overwhelming. Long time residents described the dramatic turnaround in the quality of life on the streets surrounding these two houses.