JEWISH PEOPLE all over the world recently celebrated Rosh Hashanah, our New Year. As a rabbi, this is a time where I support my community in making teshuvah – a process of repentance and self-transformation that serves as a kind of annual accounting and restoration to the best, holiest versions of ourselves. Judaism teaches that […]
Criminal Justice
Posted inCriminal Justice
Did Patriots cornerback Jack Jones get off easy in gun case?
WITH THE OFF-FIELD behavior of professional athletes an increasing focus of concern, getting busted trying to bring two loaded guns through security at Logan Airport certainly was not exactly a good look for a guy about to start his second season with the New England Patriots. And to any armchair jurist it seemed an open-and-shut […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Boston launches coordinated plan to curb gun violence
ISAAC YABLO, Mayor Michelle Wu’s senior advisor for community safety, says a shortcoming of efforts to rein in those responsible for gun violence in Boston has been that “we gave them the wrong diagnosis and therefore [applied] the wrong solution.” He says the nature of gun violence in the city has changed significantly since the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
We spearheaded state’s 2014 gun law; new legislation can build on it
FOR NEARLY 10 years Massachusetts has been one of the states with the lowest rates of firearm deaths. Firearm deaths include homicides and suicides by firearm and firearm accidents. Most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the annual firearm death rate in Massachusetts is 3.4 per 100,000 residents while […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
On Mass. and Cass, a Wu turn
ACCORDING TO THE old adage, a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. That may not be exactly what’s happening with the shift in the city’s approach to the troubled area around Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Boulevard in Boston. But it nonetheless marked a striking turn to hear the city’s progressive mayor, Michelle Wu, […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice, Opinion
It’s time to end eternal punishment for young adults
DIRCEU SEMEDO is in his 31st year of a life sentence in Massachusetts. Nearly 50 years old now, at age 18 he participated in an assault that resulted in a death. Semedo and four others were convicted of first-degree murder, though only one of the individuals (not Semedo) inflicted the fatal stab wound. In Massachusetts, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
AG says news laws needed to trace ‘ghost guns’
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE STATE’S TOP prosecutor wants legislators to do more to curb the rising presence of “ghost guns,” and her office warns that it can be difficult under existing law to nail down cases against people assembling their own untraceable firearms at home. Ghost guns, which refer to weapons that do not […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Drugs, Opinion
When drug busts lead to more overdoses we’re on the wrong path
MOST THOUGHTFUL police leaders will tell you that they will not arrest their way out of the drug abuse epidemic. A mountain of research supports their views. Still, as opioid overdoses alone have accounted for nearly 1 million lives lost in the United States in the past two decades, we remain mired in a strategy […]
Posted inOpinion
Follow New York’s lead on matching university gifts
A correction has been added to this story. STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY, part of the New York higher education system, just got some joyous news, in fact half a billion dollars of joy. Jim and Marylyn Simmons donated what is possibly the largest gift ever made to a public university. The donors credited their choice to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Commission urges New England states to prioritize prison education
IF EDUCATION IS key to a better life, that may hold double for those who are incarcerated. People who land in prison tend to have low educational attainment levels, while facing even greater employment challenges when released than those with similar education backgrounds because of the stigma and barriers their conviction carries. A report released […]