Andrea Cabral

Andrea J. Cabral, Esq., served as the Commonwealth's Executive Secretary of Public Safety in the Administration of Governor Deval Patrick.  She oversaw 14 state public safety agencies, including the Massachusetts State Police, the Department of Correction, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, the Parole Board and the Massachusetts National Guard.  Prior to that appointment, she was the Sheriff of Suffolk County and the first female sheriff in Massachusetts’ history for ten years.   She is a past president of the Massachusetts Sheriffs Association.

As an Assistant District Attorney in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office from 1993-2002, Ms. Cabral was Chief of Suffolk County’s first major felony Domestic Violence Unit, Senior Prosecutor for all civil rights cases and Chief of District Court and Community Prosecutions.  She authored the state's first continuing legal education manual on restraining orders and is also a former Assistant Attorney General and Assistant District Attorney in the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office. 

Ms. Cabral is an Eisenhower Fellow and served as one of 18 national experts appointed to the Science Advisory Board (SAB) by United States Attorney General Eric Holder.  She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy, the Editorial Board of Massachusetts Lawyer’s Weekly and the Governing Board of the Mass Mentoring Partnership.

Ms. Cabral currently works as a consultant and is a weekly contributor on WGBH Boston Public Radio.

She is a graduate of Boston College and Suffolk University Law School.