criminal justice

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.

Recent data from the American Civil Liberties Union found that 800 inmates and staff in Massachusetts prisons have tested positive for coronavirus. Decarceration advocates released a 10-point plan urging Gov. Charlie Baker to depopulate prisons throughout the commonwealth.

The one question on everyone’s lips was not whether Travis and Gregory McMichael would be charged with murder in the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery, but would they be convicted?

We must do all we can to call attention to this epidemic of gun violence in Mexico and urge Congress to reduce legal firearms exports to Mexico to levels from before the war on drugs; support a federal ban on the sale of all assault weapons and high capacity magazines; and require tighter control of gun exports.

Boston’s contract with its current surveillance company is set to expire next week, and upgrades could include facial recognition software that isn’t currently used by the city.

In these unsettling times, we can’t let fear get the better of us, and we can’t substitute technology for community and solidarity. We can save lives, act responsibly and create a better city for all of us — without relying on dangerous and unnecessary surveillance tactics.

After months of delayed response to requests, which violated the city’s public records laws, the Boston Police Department has finally released some data on 2018 pedestrian stops.