criminal justice

While Blacks make up 22% of the Boston police force, they account for 27% of allegations of misconduct, 41% of suspensions and 45% of terminations.

When overtime records show officers in court, sometimes they’re miles away Excerpt: In 124 instances between 2015 and 2019, multiple Boston police officers appear to make arrests, traffic stops and FIOs sometimes miles away from the nearest courthouse while at the same time collecting overtime for hours-long court appearances.

The ACLU of Massachusetts has launched a state-wide week of action bringing attention to police violence and misconduct across the commonwealth. On a map identifying victims of police violence and the officers involved, most of the points exist in Boston, Springfield and Worcester.

The National Medical Association shares in the anger and distress felt by communities of color over a grand jury’s decision not to indict police who killed Breonna Taylor. Once again, the grand jury system has failed to value the life of an African American.

Police Reform Task Force released its initial recommendations to the public Sept. 10, awaiting the mayor’s and City Council’s response. The group is proposing an Office of Police Accountability and Transparency to replace the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel, with more power in its departments, as well as expanded rules on body cameras, use of force and more.

We read in disbelief that a Black man who has already spent almost 23 years in a Louisiana prison for stealing a pair of garden clippers has now been denied any measure of mercy and must spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Like many young black men in Boston, Derrell “Slim” Weathers can’t tell you how many times he’s been stopped, questioned, frisked or searched by police. It started, he says, when he was 12 and has kept up into his 30s as often as five times a week.

When people are sentenced to prison, they are not sentenced to die by infection, but that is exactly what is happening.

City Councilor Andrea Campbell joined members of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers (MAMLEO) Tuesday to call for an end to the use of a controversial exam for Boston Police Department promotions. The test was ruled discriminatory once in 2015 and again in 2017 at the federal level.

Local activists seeking to defund the police are calling for a 10% cut to the budget. Mayor Martin Walsh has responded with a more modest 2.8% cut.

Black elected officials’ long-sought efforts to reform police practices are getting a new hearing after more than a week of demonstrations across the nation over the police killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd.

Trump once more proved the hard-political truism that when presidents speak out on a heinous racial killing or violence, their words have weighty consequences.