Policing Issues in Boston and Beyond

(April 2005)

Barb Dougan, issue editor, writes:

This month we explore various facets of policing. In our lead article, "Wrongful Convictions: Causes & Compensation," Steve Hrones discusses the factors at play in such criminal prosecutions and the claims that can be brought as a result. At least we now use a term for this phenomenon that acknowledges something went wrong (as opposed to historic notions of "tough luck" or "they always say they’re innocent"). That realization has led to the enactment of legislation to provide compensation; we have included a summary of the new Massachusetts statute.

Student member Benjamin Evans addresses another emerging issue in policing in his article, "Update on the "Less Lethal" Campaign." Not only has the Guild taken a highly visible role in efforts to rein in the use of supposedly "less lethal" weapons following the 2004 shooting death of Victoria Snelgrove, but we have also formed alliances with a wide array of community groups.

A pepper ball gun killed Ms. Snelgrove, but we expect a far greater threat from the recently legalized use of stun guns ("Tasers"), which are enormously popular with law enforcement agencies. The use and misuse of Tasers are described in my article "Coming Soon to Your Town? Stun Guns in Massachusetts." Guild members should monitor their local city governments to see if Tasers are being purchased. As would be expected, the NLG has a long history of challenging police misconduct. But as a predominantly white organization, we may forget that those most affected by police misconduct -- communities of color -- have waged a long battle for the right to police their own neighborhoods.

Nadine Cohen describes over 30 years of litigation aimed at the hiring practices for Boston police officers (and fire fighters as well) in "The Long Fight to Desegregate Police Departments."

Finally, we wanted to showcase the work of the "National Police Accountability Project (NPAP)," whose work is national in scope but occurs locally: NPAP is headquartered in the same building as our chapter’s office. In fact, sometimes Urszula has to bang on the pipes to get them to settle down.

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