Great Barrington — How candidates running for District Attorney and Sheriff would handle issues involving racial justice were discussed at a candidate forum on Monday, August 22.
The event was held at Berkshire South Regional Community Center and was organized by The Berkshire Resources for Integration of Diverse Groups through Education (BRIDGE). According to its website, the Lee-based grassroots nonprofit organization is dedicated to equality and justice programs, education, and advocacy.
Multicultural BRIDGE CEO and Founding Director Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant was the moderator for the forum, which was attended by Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington and Berkshire County Sheriff candidate Alf Barbalunga, who attended via Zoom.
Berkshire County Sheriff Thomas Bowler and Berkshire County District Attorney candidate Timothy Shugrue did not attend the forum.
“We usually don’t talk about what things aren’t, but this is not a debate,” VanSant said at the beginning of the forum. “This is not meant to be that type of space. This is a space where we’re going to have a discussion where we’re all going to practice civilly, and have an appreciative inquiry on how we’re going to approach the conversation around race equity.”
The questions were prepared by members of BRIDGE, along with questions posed by audience members at the end of the forum. For the first question, VanSant asked Harrington about what the role the district attorney’s office has in advancing racial justice. VanSant asked Harrington to draw from her experience as the Berkshire County District Attorney in her response.
“I see the district attorney’s role in advancing racial justice as being multifaceted,” Harrington said. “What I have found over the last three and a half years is that I can have the biggest impact on the things that my office controls, including the kinds of decisions that we make, and the way we use prosecutorial discretion. I want to lead by example because addressing the score of racial disparities that we see across the criminal legal system requires all of the different pieces of the system to be in alignment and working towards the same goal.”
Harrington added that her office works with a retired Superior Court Judge Tina Page on how to “read our police reports and look for racially coded language.”
Harrington elaborated: “We consider race and the systemic, oppressive pieces that exist throughout the system and society in analyzing our police reports.”
VanSant asked Barbalunga a similar question on what the Sheriff’s Department’s role is in advancing racial justice work.
“If you’re an inmate or detainee, male or female, at the [Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction], you will be treated fairly and equitably, regardless of race and gender,” Barbalunga said. “That’s first and primary. If you are an employee of that office, you’re going to be treated equitably as well. At this point, we have some issues with some promotional advancements [at the Sheriff’s Office], and we have a plan about how we will change to be more inclusive so it can represent the community at large.”
VanSant asked Barbalunga “what does race equity mean to you on a daily basis in your responsibilities, accountability, and commitment?”
“The bottom line is that statistics have told us, over and over again, that minorities are disproportionately prosecuted and incarcerated,” Barbalunga responded. “Unfortunately, that’s not unique to Berkshire County, Pittsfield, or any of the other towns. Personally, I’ll say on the record that I believe that we’re fortunate that we have a district attorney who has made these efforts to reduce any of these discriminatory prosecutorial practices, but that is not my wheelhouse.”
VanSant asked both Harrington and Barbalunga to “reflect on the time you generally missed an opportunity or made a professional error in and around racial justice and equity work.”
While Harrington went on to say “we definitely have had some missteps in the office in terms of ensuring that people feel like they’re being treated equitably and inclusive,” she did not specify what those missteps were. Instead, Harrington compared the diversity of her office to the diversity of Berkshire County.
“We have worked very hard to improve the diversity of the staff in the district attorney’s office,” Harrington said. “If you look at the percentages, Berkshire County is 86 percent white, while our office [employees are] 76 percent white. Our diversity is better than what we see here in Berkshire County and in the general population. What I found as a manager is that recruiting a diverse staff is really just the first step, and it’s a smaller step in working on creating a culture of inclusion in the office.”
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my career,” Barbalunga said in response to VanSant’s question. “Probably the number one thing is human service issues. Sometimes I’ve known to have an employee that’s not performing after multiple chances in training and retraining. You never want to see someone separated from their employment, especially in government and bureaucracy. It’s a tough road with unions and things of that nature. However, it’s definitely a mistake I’ve made where I haven’t cut the cord soon enough where it then adversely affects the office, and it’s not fair to all of the employees as well.”
During a portion of the forum where VanSant posed questions to Harrington, VanSant said, “There’s been a lot of critique regarding your professional efficacy and your preparedness to be in this role, and I think it’s important for you to address it directly.”
“When I started with this role three-and-a-half years ago, one of the things that really struck me was how prepared I was,” Harrington said. “I think my experience doing post-conviction death penalty appeals was critical around conviction integrity. When I went to a homicide [crime scene], I knew what I was looking for. I knew that I was there to make sure that the police were not rushing to judgment, that we were looking at all different possibilities, and that we were using competent evidence. Also that we were reaching out to victims, building those relationships with victims and witnesses right away so that people feel supported and they would share information with us about our cases. My experience representing criminal defendants in appeals and in trial matters was exactly the kind of training that I needed to bring the kinds of change that I wanted to bring as a district attorney.”
In an email sent after the forum, Shugrue’s campaign stated that he could not participate in the forum due to a scheduling conflict. The campaign stated that they sent written responses to several of the questions that they received from BRIDGE, but moderator VanSant did not read the responses during the forum.
“Advancing racial justice is at the core of the District Attorney’s responsibility because too often and for too long, the criminal justice system has been a source of racial injustice,” Shugrue wrote in response to a question about the role of the district attorney’s office in advancing racial justice. “The District Attorney’s role in advancing racial justice begins with the racial composition of the DA’s office itself. The current DA’s office does not reflect the racial composition of Berkshire County. I’ll change that. When the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] asked [Harrington] to stop using facial identification programs that incorrectly identify Blacks roughly 30 percent of the time, she refused. I’ll stop it immediately. Advancing racial justice means identifying racial profiling and stopping it. I’ll work to train police to identify their implicit bias, and I’ll hold them accountable when they engage in racial profiling, just as I’ve been holding them accountable in representing my clients for many years.”
