Reaffirming Faith in a True Justice System

Andrea is the only candidate in the field with a strong, legislative track record on criminal justice reform and community policing. 

As Boston City Councilor, she worked with partners at the State House, including Governor Baker, to secure line-item funding for investments in community policing. She established the first-ever system of civilian oversight over the Boston Police Department, ultimately establishing an Office of Police Accountability and Transparency in the City of Boston. Andrea led efforts to adopt the use of police body-worn cameras and spearheaded the fight to increase diversity in Boston’s public safety agencies.

She has made real, tangible reform in the areas of criminal justice and police reform, and will continue these efforts as Attorney General to reaffirm faith in a true justice system.

Andrea will: 

• Call for the formation of a Police Accountability Unit within the Civil Rights Division to support and ensure public trust and confidence in local law, including through the development of community and law enforcement partnership and through pattern or practice investigations where law enforcement practices appear racially biased.
• Continue to hold our public safety agencies accountable, leveraging the powers of the AG’s office to push for greater transparency and diversity.
• Push for reforms that will not only make our criminal justice system more equitable, but also keep people safe in our communities.
• Ensure our policies and actions are driven by transparency, accountability, data and equity.  This is what Andrea did when she chaired the Boston City Council’s committee on public safety and criminal justice and worked to assure that city funded violence reduction programs report outcomes and that the Boston police increase transparency and diversity.  
• Support ending sentences of life without the possibility of parole and oppose the death penalty.
• Eliminate disproportionate policing and incarceration of people of color.  
• Allocate resources to assure that criminal justice policy in the Commonwealth is driven by data and evidence while working with the Governor and Legislature to assure that we accelerate efforts to improve data collection. We must understand, for example, where our policies have a racially disparate impact and cannot fund programs that do not work. 
• Stand firm in her position to end qualified immunity for police officers. Andrea believes no one is above the law, and has been on the record to end qualified immunity since her time as a Boston City Councilor.
• Treat violent crime first as a public health problem by seeking to address its root causes and inextricable link to poverty, trauma, and discrimination. At the same time, Andrea will not hesitate to pursue prosecution and incarceration where necessary, while protecting the rights of victims and striving for equity and restorative justice.
• Use her legal authority and public platform to ensure that state and municipal public safety officials reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. 
• Focus her enforcement resources on those areas where the Attorney General  has unique resources to assure that our most vulnerable citizens are protected – complex investigations of fraudsters targeting elders and immigrants and gun and opioid traffickers operating across county lines, for instance.
• Assure that public servants who betray their oath to act in the best interests of the public and those who steal from the Commonwealth are exposed and appropriately sanctioned. 
• Work with the newly formed Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission, which is charged with creating a mandatory certification process for police officers, as well as processes for decertification, suspension of certification, or reprimand in the event of certain misconduct.