Audit of the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office

This is a state performance audit of the Bristol County District Attorney's Office, covering January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017.

“In accordance with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the Office of the State Auditor has conducted a performance audit of the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office (BCDA) for the period January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017.”

The auditor looked at how the office handled its Juvenile Diversion Program and Victim Witness Assistance Program.

“In this performance audit, we examined BCDA’s activities related to the administration of its Juvenile Diversion and Victim Witness Assistance Programs.”

Without tracking results, the office has limited ability to know whether the juvenile diversion program is succeeding or needs changes.

“As a result, BCDA’s ability to measure the success of the program and determine whether any changes to it are necessary is limited.”

For residents, this matters because the program can let eligible young people avoid formal court processing if they complete requirements, but the office was not formally measuring outcomes.

“When participants have successfully completed the program requirements, the charges against them are dismissed before arraignment.”

The auditor recommended that the office collect and review useful data, use it to improve the program, and support funding requests.

“BCDA should identify the relevant data that could be used to assess the success of its Juvenile Diversion Program, establish a formal process to collect and evaluate this information, and use it to make any necessary program enhancements and support requests to the Legislature for program-specific funding.”

The report says the District Attorney's Office disagreed with the auditor's view, while the auditor repeated the recommendation to collect and evaluate data.

“We again recommend that BCDA identify the relevant data that could be used to assess the success of its Juvenile Diversion Program, establish a formal process to collect and evaluate this information, and use it to make any necessary program enhancements and support requests to the Legislature for program-specific funding.”

The audit was limited by delays and restricted access to some records, which affected how much the auditor could verify, especially for the victim witness program.

“These constraints significantly delayed the completion of the audit.”

DAMION is the office's case-management system, used to track court dates for cases.

“DAMION is BCDA’s case-management system.”