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Thursday, 30 June 2005 |
As I travel around the state, whether I'm in Rochester or Hibbing, Owatonna or Apple Valley, people often ask me about my job as the Hennepin County Attorney.
My job covers a lot of territory: For seven years I've represented and served more than 1.1 million people - nearly one-quarter of Minnesota's total population. My jurisdiction includes 45 communities - encompassing urban, suburban and rural communities.
In terms of responsibilities, I serve as the chief prosecutor of all adult felony crimes and juvenile offenses. That's more than 12,000 cases each year. I lead an office of nearly 400 employees and I am really proud of the work we do every day. Our prosecutors handle some of the most tragic cases you'll ever hear about, and they do it with courage, compassion and a commitment to the highest ethical standards. My office also provides legal counsel to the county government, covering areas like transportation, the environment, health and human services. We work at the State Capitol and have been successful in drafting and advocating for many bills aimed at crime prevention and the protection of kids, seniors and the most vulnerable among us.
As the County Attorney, my priorities have always been clear and upfront:
- We've targeted career criminals and violent offenders for aggressive prosecution.
- We've kept predatory sex offenders off the streets both by criminal prosecution and civil commitment.
- We've focused on white-collar financial crimes and crimes committed against seniors and vulnerable adults.
- We've worked more closely with schools to make sure kids are safe and to help them stay in the classroom and out of the courtroom.
- And we've focused on building closer working relationships with local residents, businesses and police through our community prosecution efforts to better respond to neighborhood crimes.
Since 1999, we've succeeded - with the help of many others - in significantly reducing the crime rate in our County (by last count, a 20% reduction in serious crime). We've also earned a number of national awards and honors for our innovations - including from the U.S. Department of Justice under both the Clinton and Bush Administrations.
While I'm proud of the work we've done in making sure there's a consequence when someone commits a crime, I'm just as proud of the work we do in preventing crime from happening in the first place - turning a kid's life around by giving him a second chance after a minor offense, working with seniors to educate them on ways to watch out for identity thieves, or getting a defendant the mental health treatment he needs to lead a law-abiding, productive life.
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