This past Friday, RCSE had ADA Michael Edwards speak to the club about what is happening in the Chatham County District Attorney office. Before he presented, President Laura Lane reminded members to please bring back their completed Thanksgiving Cards and reminded members of the November Service Project at America's Second Harvest on Saturday, November 6th. Once all business items were complete, Michael began his presentation.
Since it has only been 10 months since the new DA, Shalena Cook Jones, was sworn into office, they are sill in the process of building a lot of programs. COVID exposed the back log in the court system. The DA office decided this was the perfect opportunity to reimagine prosecution and to think about issues more broadly. Resources is the biggest problem the DA office is facing and therefore, they want to focus on prosecuting cases that have the biggest impact on our community. The Savannah juvenile court system has more offenders that any other county in Georgia. They want to be more thoughtful/strategic with juveniles and to try and help them with resources if they can.
The best way to prevent crime is to prevent people from entering the system. The DA office has many initiatives to help such as Show Us Your Guns (helping 16-25 years move themselves out of poor decisions to better ones), Racketeering and Crime Coalition (share and learn more about the community) and an Expungement Clinic (help those people who are trying to apply for jobs). In conclusion, crime affects everyone in the community and the DA office is committed to prosecuting those cases that have the biggest impact on our community.