Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins criticized The Boston Globe's decision to publish a column in its opinion pages last week by Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe that — without naming Rollins — criticized a new generation of prosecutors that he characterized as "social justice" district attorneys.

Granting that O'Keefe was entitled to his opinion, Rollins told Jim Braude on "Greater Boston" Tuesday that it was "odd that rather than focusing on [his own] county, he's focusing on mine."

But, Rollins added, "I'm less disappointed with DA O'Keefe than I am with the Globe."

She criticized the Globe's decision to publish a piece that she, in essence, called overly rhetorical.

"That, without citing a single statistic or piece of data, they allowed this op-ed to run when we've had community activists and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute writing about gun violence and the lack of funding — the Globe declined that op-ed," Rollins said. "We had Judge [Nancy] Gertner, who is a former federal judge, Harvard Law School professor. A professor at Northeastern, Daniel Medwed, they declined that op-ed."

In a statement emailed to WGBH News, Marjorie Pritchard, deputy managing editor of the Globe's editorial page, wrote: "The Globe op-ed page welcomes a variety of points of view on current issues."

Rollins was elected Suffolk County's chief prosecutor seven months ago after presenting a vision that balanced crime control with reducing rates of incarceration, which disproportionately impact young men of color.

She developed a list of 15 low-levels crimes that the DA's office would review on a case-by-case basis and would — generally — be reluctant to prosecute. The roster includes trespassing, shoplifting, larceny under $250, receiving stolen property, and drug possession with intent to distribute. Rollins told Braude in January that her philosophy was that jail should be a last resort.

O'Keefe's op-ed held that legislators make the law, and prosecutors enforce it.

This, Rollins suggested, was overly simplistic.

In his op-ed, O'Keefe wrote that the "idea that we should exempt groups of people from having to obey the law is an insult to them and a destructive form of pandering, because it suggests that these people are lesser beings than those we expect to obey the law."

O'Keefe also wrote: "It’s harder to blame, for example, the disintegration of the family, a lack of respect for discipline and education, and the glorification in some communities of a culture that celebrates disrespectful language and misogyny under the guise of art."

When asked by Braude if she thought that passage in the op-ed was racist, Rollins said: "I certainly believe that that's barely veiled."

In a statement emailed to WGBH News on Wednesday, O'Keefe wrote: "I have a policy difference with the 'social justice district attorney' whether in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston or elsewhere. It’s not personal, it’s a policy difference. It’s unfortunate that the media is egging on someone to suggest that a policy difference is 'racist.'"

In her first time publicly commenting on the op-ed, Rollins said that "as the lone person of color who's a DA in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, I'll leave it to the readers to make their own determination."

"I'm not going to entertain me, being a brown face, saying that someone's racist," Rollins said. "If people read this [op-ed] and look at it and believe it's racist, they should open their mouths and say it."

Rollins emphasized that her not wanting to prosecute certain crimes was "not a blanket policy."

"It's a situation where if you're poor or [have a] substance use disorder or mental health issues, we want to get you the help you need instead of putting you in jail," she said, "which is $55,000 a year for taxpayers to pay in Nashua Street or South Bay."

This article has been updated with a statement from Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe.