Keeping Children Safe Through Smart Prevention And Intervention Efforts

Community-Based Justice Program

Gerry has spent his career working with children, schools, and communities on smart prevention initiatives to keep our children safe.

During a wave of gang and school-based violence in the early 1990s, then-District Attorney Thomas F. Reilly established the Community-Based Justice (CBJ) program, bringing together school personnel, public safety professionals, and social service providers in each community to help identify at-risk kids and provide them with the positive alternatives to steer them away from crime and violence. The program was directed by then-ADA Gerry Leone, personally spending many of his mornings in Middlesex County schools to run these meetings and get the program off the ground.

CBJ became a national model for violence prevention in our schools, and the programs flourish in communities throughout the entire Commonwealth, now being mandated by the legislature. The CBJ program exists in every Middlesex community.

As District Attorney, Leone has established a program by which individual District Court ADAs are assigned to every Middlesex community to direct the CBJ programs. For more information on the CBJ program in your community, please contact Community Programs Coordinator Robyn Pontremoli at 508-370-4605.