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.
Research and Commentary Resulting from Roundtable Work
This Is What Thriving Communities Look Like: Insights from Residents of Four Boston Neighborhoods. Roundtable on Racial Disparities in Massachusetts Criminal Courts, August 2024.
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, "." Commonwealth, February 12, 2022.
Sandra Susan Smith, Felix Owusu, and Stacey Borden, The Boston Globe, January 31, 2022.
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Related Research and Commentary by Roundtable Members
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. The Boston Globe, June 17, 2024.
Marilyn J. Mosby and Rachael Rollins, The Boston Globe, May 17, 2021.
Ramirez, Deborah, and Tamar Pinto. Rutgers UL Rev. 73 (2020): 307.
Sandra Susan Smith, The Boston Globe, October 16, 2020.