Decriminalization and Policing

While racial disparities are prevalent throughout the criminal legal system, they are even starker when it comes to low-level, nonviolent offenses. Because mass misdemeanor criminalization is one major driver of racial disparities in arrests, prosecutions, and convictions, the elimination of aggressive policing practices and the decriminalization and presumptive nonprosecution of many low-level, nonviolent offenses should result in reductions in racial disparities. This working group is tasked with explicating the social harms that overpolicing and overcriminalization produce, assessing what recent policing reforms in Boston and the state have produced in terms of patterns of inequities, and offering recommendations and a strategic plan about what approaches are needed to make progress toward the eradication of systems of overpolicing and overcriminalization, in the process, significantly reducing the footprint of the system overall.

This Is What Thriving Communities Look Like: Insights from Residents of Four Boston Neighborhoods. Roundtable on Racial Disparities in Massachusetts Criminal Courts, August 2024.

• Report
• Photos from focus group participants

Reducing Racial Disparities through Decriminalization in Massachusetts: What Seems to Work and What Makes Matters Worse. Roundtable on Racial Disparities in Massachusetts Criminal Courts Policy Brief, March 2022.

Deborah Ramirez and Sandra Susan Smith, "SJC takes big step backward on racial justice." Commonwealth, February 12, 2022.

Sandra Susan Smith, Felix Owusu, and Stacey Borden, "Boston’s gang database should be dismantled." The Boston Globe, January 31, 2022.
(Related: Police removed 600-plus names from a Boston gang database. For some councilors, it’s not enough.)

Smith, Sandra Susan. Bias, Distrust, and Trauma: Racial Disparities in Boston Residents’ Experiences with Law Enforcement and Related Outcomes. Program in  Criminal Justice Policy and Management, May 30, 2024 (updated June 10, 2024).

Sandra Susan Smith. "Boston continues to fail to earn the Black community’s trust." The Boston Globe, June 17, 2024.

Marilyn J. Mosby and Rachael Rollins, "The public safety benefits of not prosecuting low-level crimes." The Boston Globe, May 17, 2021.

Ramirez, Deborah, and Tamar Pinto. "Policing the Police: A Roadmap to Police Accountability Using Professional Liability Insurance." Rutgers UL Rev. 73 (2020): 307.

Sandra Susan Smith, “We’ve seen these proposed Boston police reforms before — they don’t work.” The Boston Globe, October 16, 2020.