Great Barrington — Members of the town’s police department, along with First Assistant District Attorney Marianne Shelvey, spoke to seniors at the Claire Teague Center Senior Center on Tuesday, September 12.
The event was originally set up as a discussion of issues between seniors and Berkshire County District Attorney Timothy Shugrue. However, Shugrue could not attend the event due to illness, so First Assistant District Attorney Shelvey attended in his place.
According to Police Chief Paul Storti, the event was a way for both the District Attorney’s office and members of the Great Barrington Police Department to talk to seniors about issues that are affecting them. “An event like this is a great way for us to learn from our community’s senior citizens what we can do to help them and support them,” Chief Storti said. “One of our goals for today’s event is to expand our network of communication a little bit more. We’ve invited senior citizens from all over the Berkshires so we can share resources with them so we can get information out a little further. It’s always important for us to be out there in the community so people will put a face to the name of our members.”
“I think [it is] very important that all members of the community feel like they have access to the district attorney’s office,” Shelvey said. “What we are finding out when we go to events like this is that people have either preconceived notions about something that they’ve seen or heard when it comes to law enforcement, or that they don’t know where to find the resources that they need.”
Shelvey said that she wants seniors and others to hear more about what the district attorney’s office does. “One of the preconceived notions people have is that our office just wants to put people in jail,” Shelvey said. “People seem very surprised when they learn that a lot of our work involves programming to prevent recidivism. We figure out ways where we can help people and we try to find ways to address the root of the issue as opposed to just saying that ‘all people are bad and they need to go to jail.’ For the most part, these individuals coming into the system are [in that situation] because of an underlying trauma or an underlying problem.”
