APRIL 14, 2024
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"Inside the Job of
the District Attorney" |
with Stephanie A.
Bridgett, Shasta County DA |
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FULL TWO HOURS
HOUR 1
HOUR 2
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About
our guest: Honorable Stephanie A. Bridgett,
Shasta County DA
Stephanie A. Bridgett
is the first woman to serve as Shasta County
District Attorney since the office was
established in 1851.
District Attorney Bridgett has spent the
majority of her professional career as a
prosecutor in the Shasta County District
Attorney’s Office. She began in the Shasta
County District Attorney’s Office in 2002
and in March of 2017, she was sworn in as
the 32nd District Attorney. She was elected
one year later and sworn in as District
Attorney in January of 2019.
During her career she has handled every type
of criminal prosecution from misdemeanor
cases to homicides. She is committed to
ensuring victims of crime have a voice and
that her office fights to make sure justice
is served. She believes in offender
accountability. She also individually, and
as an office, engages in outreach in an
effort to educate our community about crime
prevention.
DA Bridgett’s top priority is equal justice
for all with a focus on protecting children
of Shasta County from physical, sexual and
emotional abuse. Before becoming the
District Attorney, she spent three years
handling all child sexual and physical abuse
cases, obtaining multiple life sentences for
offenders that hurt children. Upon becoming
the District Attorney, DA Bridgett formed
the Family Violence Unit which specializes
in prosecuting those offenders that harm our
most vulnerable victims, including,
children, elders and victims of Domestic
Violence and stalking. She knows that a
strong healthy family is required to
decrease the potential of future criminal
and addictive behavior. DA Bridgett has been
a Board Member of the Children’s Legacy
Center since 2017.
DA Bridgett knows that community outreach on
issues critical to Shasta County not only
raise awareness which helps prevent these
crimes but also helps increase public trust
in the District Attorney’s Office and the
criminal justice system. To support this
belief, she instituted several annual
community awareness events including the
Fraud Prevention Fair, World Elder Abuse
Awareness Day Food drive, Homicide Victim
Memorial and Strike Out Domestic Violence
Bowl-a-Thon which raises money to send kids
impacted by domestic violence to CAMP HOPE,
a summer camp designed to help kids heal
from abuse. She has also encouraged and
facilitated training in schools on issues
including anti-bullying, human trafficking
and cyber safety. Her office hosted several
community and law enforcement trainings
including issues such as sexual assault and
domestic violence for first responders,
child sex trafficking and the opioid crisis.
Under DA Bridgett’s leadership, her office
has been able to better assist the unserved/
underserved elder population by obtaining a
competitive grant that allowed the office to
employee a fulltime advocate dedicated to
this population. She also oversaw the
preparation of her Crime Victim’s Assistance
Center in the event of a mass causality
including a preparedness plan for advocates
to immediately respond and assist our
community.
In the ever-changing landscape of criminal
justice in California, DA Bridgett has found
ways to continue to serve the community in
creative fashions. She saw the need to focus
prosecution on offenders who consume the
most resources from the community, be it law
enforcement or medical resources, and
created the Chronic Offender Accountability
Program. In collaboration with all local law
enforcement agencies this program works to
make sure these offenders are off the
streets and unable to reoffend. In contrast
to this program, DA Bridgett knows that not
all offenders deserve to be incarcerated and
therefore her office continues to
participate in the local Addicted Offender
Program which gives drug addicted felons a
chance to rehabilitate and clean their
record. Under her guidance the office also
created a misdemeanor drug diversion which
aims to divert drug addicted individuals
from the criminal justice system all while
they are still at the misdemeanor level in
hopes of changing their life for the better
before their addiction and criminality
increases.
District Attorney Bridgett graduated from
California State University Hayward (East
Bay) in 1996 where she obtained a Bachelor
Degree in Business Administration with a
minor in Marketing. She graduated from the
University of the Pacific, McGeorge School
of Law in 2001 with distinction in the top
15% of her class. |
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