IN NEW BEDFORD, the City Council considered requiring panhandlers to get licenses to ask for money in the city. Manchester, New Hampshire, banned the exchange of items of value between […]
Criminal Justice
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Slow, steady on military sex assaults
SHORTLY AFTER TAKING HER SEAT in the House in 2007, US Rep. Niki Tsongas of Lowell attended a luncheon for soldiers wounded in combat. Tsongas approached some women at the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Guns, Opinion
A time to heal
THE MURDER OF two black men at the hands of the police earlier this week and the killing of five law enforcement officers in Dallas Thursday night is a double […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics, State House News Service
Baker plans budget amendment on licenses
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE AFTER CONCERNS WERE RAISED in the Legislature and the press, Gov. Charlie Baker plans to file a state budget amendment seeking to ensure that those in […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
The Codcast: The everyday terrorism of urban gun violence
Just over a week ago, 17-year-old Raekwon Brown was fatally gunned down just steps from Jeremiah Burke High School in Dorchester, where he was a student. Three others, including a […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
The unobstructed view of hindsight
In the aftermath of the Orlando massacre, fingers are being pointed and questions asked about why federal law enforcement officials didn’t detain — or at the least keep track of […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics, The Back Story
Weld’s views ‘developing’ on criminal justice reform
WHEN HE RAN for governor in Massachusetts 26 years ago, Republican Bill Weld cut a more moderate profile on many social issues than his Democratic opponent, John Silber – a […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Opinion, Politics
DA O’Keefe amazed at limited DeLeo leak inquiry
I write in response to the recent article that ran under the headline, “Gants calls off DeLeo leak inquiry.” This article carried the sub-headline, “Law enforcement officials tell SJC they […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Opinion
Why Boston drove Ali fight out of town
HE CALLED HIMSELF Muhammad Ali because his given name, he said, was “a slave’s name, and I’m no longer a slave.” In 1965 he was still called Cassius Clay, his father’s […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Gants calls off DeLeo leak inquiry
AFTER FEDERAL AND STATE law enforcement officials said they didn’t do it, the Supreme Judicial Court is calling off its inquiry into who leaked to the press the confidential transcript […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Opinion
Time to get fully on board with police body cameras
TAMIR RICE. MICHAEL BROWN. WALTER SCOTT. These are just some of the high profile police-involved shootings that caught the nation’s attention and highlighted some of the more extreme interactions between […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, State House News Service
27 correctional officers honored
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE TWENTY-SEVEN CORRECTIONAL officers and one K9 were honored Friday at the State House as correctional employees of the year, each one recognized for acts that went […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Opinion
Massachusetts should clear juvenile records
A WHO’S WHO crowd of criminal justice leaders gathered at the Seaport Hotel on Monday for the annual fundraising breakfast for the Chelsea-based nonprofit Roca, which works to steer high-risk young […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, State House News Service
Baker sees ‘something really big’ coming in criminal justice reform
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE WHEN GOV. CHARLIE BAKER walked out of an intensive educational program for prison inmates last week, he thought to himself, “why the . . . did […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Gambling
Was Lightbody in or was he out?
JURORS IN THE FEDERAL conspiracy trial of three men involved in the sale of the Everett land for a Wynn casino began deliberations Thursday with both prosecutors and defense attorneys […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, State House News Service
Retirement board ordered to give DiMasi $127,000
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER SALVATORE DIMASI, now serving out an eight-year prison sentence for federal corruption charges, is entitled to the return of about $127,000 in contributions […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Gambling
Witness: Wynn Resorts was told about Lightbody in 2012
TWO TOP OFFICIALS AT WYNN RESORTS were told in November 2012 that the owners of the Everett land they were seeking to buy included a man with a “checkered past” […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, State House News Service
Prison recidivism very high in Massachusetts
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE PEOPLE WHO HAD BEEN CONVICTED OF PRIOR OFFENSES accounted for nearly three quarters of new convictions in Massachusetts in a single year, according to a data […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Gambling
Wynn land case opens with lots of expletives
A STREAM OF SWEAR WORDS cascaded around a federal courtroom in Boston on Tuesday as US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office opened its case against three men accused of concealing the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Police presence stepped up on T, at Logan
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER said he and other state officials held a 2 p.m. conference call on Tuesday to discuss the terrorist attacks in Belgium and to deploy a greater law […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Drug Addiction, State House News Service
Deal struck on driver’s licenses for drug offenders
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE GROUP OF lawmakers working since January to reconcile House and Senate versions of a bill to repeal what has been called a remnant of the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Opinion
Building a developmentally appropriate justice system
YOUNG PEOPLE between the ages of 18 and 24 fill up America’s prisons and return behind bars faster than anyone else. This troubling reality is not taken lightly in Massachusetts, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Smoking out support for legalizing pot
THERE IS A MOVEMENT AFOOT to light up the smoking lamp in Massachusetts, if you will. A Washington, DC-based group with wired-in local connections is on the verge of placing […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
House moves on driver’s license sanctions
THE HOUSE MOVED on Wednesday to form a conference committee with senators to resolve differences between the two branches on a criminal justice reform bill that earlier this month seemed […]
