Services Over Sentences News Today

In 2022 the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office launched Services Over Sentences, a program funded to help lower-level offenders in the Mass and Cass area receive the support necessary to leave the area.

Jay O. Candelario, 43, was “a well-known drug dealer” who preyed on the vulnerable in the Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard intersection of Boston during its “peak population point,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement.

A Mass and Cass drug dealer who had a "major presence" in the area has been sentenced to 13 years in prison after being convicted on numerous drug and gun charges.

The Massachusetts legislature is making a move to tackle the Mass and Cass problem by putting $1 million toward alternative treatment to get nonviolent offenders clean and out of the encampment at the center of the region’s opioid crisis.

Interim Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden sat down with Boston.com to discuss the issues ahead of the Sept. 6 primary election.

The series of debates in Boston included candidates for the State Senate Second Suffolk District, Suffolk County sheriff and district attorney.

The arrests are part of a "crackdown" on drug dealing around Mass. and Cass and other Boston neighborhoods, prosecutors said.

Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office is allocating $400,000 toward a program that hopes to provide an alternative to prosecution for those struggling with homelessness and substance use disorder at the intersection of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Mass. Ave known as Mass. and Cass.

The Suffolk County district attorney's office will expand a drug diversion program for adults struggling with substance use and mental health disorders who are arrested in an area near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.

District Attorney Kevin Hayden says he will take a different approach to handling cases involving mental health and substance abuse issues.