Bianchi's Overhaul of Prosecutor's Office Earns Award

Morris County Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi will be named "Prosecutor of the Year" by the New Jersey Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association Tuesday.

The award will be presented at a ceremony during the group's 42nd Annual Conference at the Hilton Hotel in Atlantic City. The conference continues through Friday.

According to the association, Bianchi was picked because of his "significant overhaul of the investigative mission of the Morris County Prosecutor's Office." It notes Bianchi, who was appointed to the prosecutor post in 2007, created his office's Intelligence Crime Task Force, under the same command structure as its Special Enforcement Unit. The association also credits Bianchi for credting the Burglary Crime Task Force.

"When Prosecutor Bianchi came into office, he quickly recognized that the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office did not have a functioning intelligence unit," a release from the association states. "The manner in which narcotic investigations were being pursued clearly lacked 21st-century vision and technology which would provide for a performance driven approach to proactive law enforcement.  The redesign of this unit by Prosecutor Bianchi led to the development of two closely-related units which operate jointly, pursuing gang, guns, drugs, burglaries and violent crime investigations."

The task forces and Special Enforcement Unit have been working with other local, state and federal law enforcement groups to target high-risk violent gang structures in and around Morris County, according to the association. The strategies applied by the prosecutor's office and other agencies have paid off, it said.

A study conducted by Bianchi's staff using case tracking data, according to the association, detailed the impact of his office's strategies over Bianchi's first three years, as compared to the previous administration. And the results, the association said in a separate, similar release on the award, were "nothing less than staggering."

"Although it was known that this aggressive investigation/prosecution model was resulting in greater prison sentences for the most dangerous criminals, Prosecutor Bianchi could now report conclusively to the citizens of Morris County that criminals in their county wer serving nearly 1,000 more years collectively than those criminals sentences in the three years prior to his appointment as prosecutor," the association said.

The association also credited Bianchi for focusing the Intelligence Crime Task Force on analystis that improve intelligence-led policing and help identify people of strategic interest, working along with other law enforcement agencies.

"They have also been providing municipal partners with analytical products, which allow them to have a greater impact on crime trends within their municipalities," the association said. The products include emerging crime trend bulletins, hot-spot crime density maps, and models for forecasting high-crime risk areas throughout the county.