Alison Healey made history when she was the first woman elected to lead Harford County’s State’s Attorney’s Office in 2022. Now Healey, a Republican, is hoping to get reelected for a second term.

Healey has been a county prosecutor for more than 12 years, and in 2022 she ran on law enforcement partnerships, a “victim-first mentality” and tough-on-crime approach.

She has prosecuted some of the county’s most high-profile cases, including the murder of Rachel Morin and the case against Jaylen Prince, who fatally shot a classmate at Joppatowne High School. Healey, who has a law degree from the University of Baltimore, said she hasn’t lost a case while serving as state’s attorney.

Healey currently has no competition for the job, which pays $201,333, according to the county’s fiscal year 2026 budget. Republican and Democratic candidates for the office must file by Feb. 24. All other candidates must file by July 6.

Editor’s note: These responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What are the biggest public safety concerns in Harford County right now, and what kinds of cases are you hoping to focus on?

There’s a statewide public safety concern when it comes to juvenile crime, and I think we’ve heard a lot about that. … Obviously we’re always focused here on violent crime, and we’re making sure that we are keeping that down because our sole focus is just generally to make sure that Harford County remains a safe place to live, work and raise your family.

You mentioned juvenile crime. Especially in light of the Joppatowne High School shooting, what are you hoping to see out of Betsy Fox Tolentino’s administration at the Department of Juvenile Services?

We’ve had some conversations with Ms. Fox Tolentino. We’re hoping to see some increased resources, just a stronger sense of accountability for our juveniles. Yes, I prosecuted the Jaylen Prince case, and obviously that’s very concerning, but it’s not just things as serious as shootings in schools. We’re seeing car thefts. We’re seeing violent crime, drug distribution, things like that out of our juveniles, so it’s really a focus as a whole on those items.

What does that accountability look like in your eyes?

There needs to be accountability, whether that’s commitment, whether that’s programming. … The goal of juvenile court is supposed to be to rehabilitate kids, and so what we need to see is that there are programs that can actually address the issues at hand. Things like gun violence and substance abuse, there really isn’t a whole lot of treatment programs for juveniles when it comes to that. But sometimes it also means commitment, to make sure that we don’t have dangerous offenders because, despite being juveniles, some of them are dangerous to our community and commitment is warranted.

Crime is down compared with last year in Harford County. The county ranks in the state’s bottom 10 in crime rates. From a prosecutor standpoint, what do you think has led to that decrease in that crime rate?

One, we are very blessed with great law enforcement here. … But the second piece of it is what we have done here in this administration and this office in the last three years. We have made it so that Harford County is a tough place on crime, so when people commit crimes, they’re being held accountable and, in a lot of instances, getting long incarceration sentences. We have sent the message that Harford County is not the place to come to do crime. But also, we have removed some of our most dangerous offenders from the streets for very long sentences.

On your campaign website, you said you want to “fight to keep Baltimore City crime and their disastrous policies out of Harford County.” Can you expand on how you think you’ve done that?

When I campaigned in 2022, we were seeing a lot of those Baltimore City policies. I don’t really want to talk too much about what happened prior, but, the administration prior to me was from Baltimore City. … We were seeing [they were] light on crime, they were dropping cases, pleading cases down, things like that; not being willing to take cases to trial and to hold people accountable, so that was what I meant by that, and that is exactly what we have done. … We’re not afraid anymore to take cases to trial, and we have gotten really good results and longer sentences. So we are seeing a very different State’s Attorney’s Office since 2023, when I took office.

You mentioned the Jaylen Prince case. You also prosecuted the Rachel Morin case. What goes into the decision when you’re deciding to prosecute a case yourself?

Those are the high-profile cases that I handle that everybody knows about, but I handle so many cases. … One of the big things that I ran on was leading by example, being in the courtroom and demonstrating the best practices for the attorneys in our office on cases. So obviously, our high-profile stuff, the most serious crimes, in most cases, I will elect to handle those myself. But it’s not just that. Yesterday I was in district court. I’ve handled several district court cases. … I also want my attorneys to know I’m not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t myself do.

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