James Welch, the Newton man who was arrested in February for illegal firearms possession, was sentenced to 33 months in prison on Oct. 8.

The Court also recommended he participate in the Bureau of Prisons’ Residential Drug Abuse Program. After he serves his time in prison, he will have three years of supervised release wherein he will be expected to comply with drug testing and mental health treatment. He was also fined $100.

Welch, who has numerous prior convictions, has lived a troubled life. He lived in a homeless shelter with his mother and brother starting from age 6, and after being removed from his mother’s care due to her mental health issues, he lived in numerous foster homes until he aged out of the system. Since February, he has been voluntarily complying with mental health and substance use treatment programs in the correctional facility. He says he is motivated to get better because of his partner and their daughter. He also said the courts should take into account the relatively minor nature of his previous crimes and that they were mostly committed while he was under 24. Welch’s lawyer asked for a sentence of 27 months and 36 months of supervised release.

The US District Attorney’s office did not think his circumstances fully justified a reduced sentence, although they did choose a sentence at the lower end of the guidelines for this offence, which is 33 to 41 months. His prior convictions were in local courts, and therefore, did not lead to as lengthy a sentence. The District Attorney’s Office hopes that a longer sentence will help him turn his life around, but they also think that he is dangerous to the people around him, and that this should be factored into his sentence.

“The Defendant is merely thirty years old yet counts eighteen entries in the history of his adult criminal convictions,” the U.S. attorney’s office said. “That averages to 1.5 per year since his 18th birthday. Some of these appear comparatively petty in nature, which factored into the government’s low-end recommendation. But many do not. It is no small thing, for example, to be convicted of battering the mother of his child while she pushed a baby carriage. Or to spit on her and throw hot coffee in her face. Or to batter her while pregnant.”

They also noted that he had unsecured firearms in a home with a child, that he was so intoxicated when the police arrived at 6 a.m. that he had to receive medical treatment before his arraignment, and that a woman who is being domestically abused is five times more likely to be killed if her abuser owns firearms.

“The government does not deny the role of prior trauma, poor mental health, and substance abuse, as described in the PSR. But neither can it deny the portrait that emerges from the Defendant’s criminal history, which is of a person who persistently and unrelentingly flouts the most basic societal norms and thereby hurts and endangers the people around him, family and strangers alike,” the District Attorney’s Office said.

He has a 2014 conviction in Newton District Court for larceny of a motor vehicle, a 2016 conviction in Newton District Court for breaking and entering, a 2017 conviction in Lowell District Court for malicious destruction of property and resisting arrest, and a 2018 conviction in Waltham District Court for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a family or household member.