Northampton police and race: Hold the accolades
A few years ago, while sitting at my desk, I saw a tall, thin white man dressed in a black jacket, black jeans, and a watch cap, trying to climb into my neighbor’s window. I called the police. A few minutes later they arrived, sirens blaring. Of course, the tall white man dressed in black fled when he heard the sirens. They had a description of the man since I was watching him while speaking to police on the phone. Five minutes later, a sergeant came to my door. He said they had stopped someone and asked if I could identify the person I had seen. They drove me around the corner where three officers surrounded a young Latino man who was about 16. He was short, with a dark complexion, wearing a big, baggy jacket, loose-fitting gray pants, and a baseball cap. I told the sergeant the person they stopped was the exact opposite of the person I described. While they were busy profiling this young man, the man who had tried to break into the house was long gone.
I thought of this incident when reading the article, “Race Matters: For 15 years Northampton police have tracked racial data” July 2-8, 2015, about policing in Northampton. The statistics discussed in Amanda Drane’s article mention only the number of people receiving motor vehicle citations and arrests. There is no mention of police encounters and stops of people walking or driving that did not result in citations or arrests. If the Northampton police department and the City Council want to determine if racially disparate policing takes place in Northampton, they need to develop a system of recording the race and ethnicity of all people stopped while driving and walking. If they find there is no difference there, then they can pat themselves on the back.
Legal Aid means equal access to justice for all
We implore the legislature to increase Massachusetts’ investment in civil legal aid in next year’s budget.
To see why this is necessary, just visit any local court. There you’ll see neighbors who can’t afford a lawyer, trying to make sense of a complex judicial system. In a criminal case that carries the possibility of imprisonment, the judge will appoint an attorney at the state’s expense. But in non-criminal cases there is no right to counsel, regardless of how complicated the case might be or how life-altering the circumstances that bring the person to court. They may be children, disabled, seniors, veterans, or victims of domestic violence. Their families may be faced with eviction, wanting for food, or denied health care.
The civil legal assistance so desperately needed by our neighbors and friends has long been provided by local legal aid programs. That work produces an economic benefit to Massachusetts by reducing costs it would otherwise incur to provide assistance to victims of domestic violence, foreclosure, or wrongful denial of benefits. Judges and attorneys have long applauded legal aid, not only because they believe in its mission but also because it helps streamline the system and reduce court costs.
Yet despite its indisputable importance, our civil legal aid system is near the breaking point due to budget cuts and revenue losses. As a result, every year thousands of eligible deserving low-income people in Western Massachusetts are denied civil legal services. Many of those litigants lose their case, not on its merits, but because they were simply too poor to hire an attorney.
The quality of justice should not depend on how much money one has. Civil legal aid provides equal access to justice that all people deserve. Please contact your legislators and insist that civil legal aid is adequately funded.
