Annissa Essaibi George and Michelle Wu face-off in virtual forum
Boston mayoral candidates Annissa Essaibi George and Michelle Wu proposed contrasting plans for public safety and police reform in a virtual forum on Wednesday night, with Essaibi George advocating for increasing diversity within the Boston Police Department and Wu asserting the need for deep structural reform.
The forum, hosted by Amplify Latinx in partnership with Greater Boston Latino Network, Boston Globe Media, MA LGBT Chamber of Commerce and Boston Debate League, provided Latinx voters in Boston an opportunity to hear the candidates discuss race, gender and economic equity.
Essaibi George said investing in officer diversity would help build relationships with neighborhood leaders and organizations, which would improve the department’s responsiveness especially issues such as mental health and domestic violence.
“If we are truly going to be responsive to the needs of our community members,” said Essaibi George, “we need to make sure that our Boston Police Department and its leadership reflects the communities in which are served.”
Data from the BPD shows the department remains largely white at 65% while Black, Hispanic and Asian officers comprise a total of 34% in the department.
Investing more money and resources into increasing diversity is not the most efficient course of action, said Wu, particularly when tackling the long history of racism and discrimination within Boston law enforcement.
“Until we tackle the root causes here we will be right back at square one the next morning,” said Wu. “We need accountability for budget dollars and to be directing our funding to the tackling the root causes of trauma and violence in our communities, not over policing.”
According to data collected by the BPD’s Field Interrogation and Observation Study, which began in 2010, 70% of people stopped by Boston police officers in 2020 were Black despite comprising less than one quarter of the city’s population.
Many circumstances don’t require police intervention, said Essaibi George, “but the crisis gets to such a point that that is what is necessary. We've got to work to be more proactive and connect our city's residents.”
A study published by the journal Science earlier this year suggests that diversity in the police could improve how people of color are treated by officers. Compared to white colleagues, Black and Hispanic officers made fewer stops and arrests. Officers of color and females also used less force than their white counterparts.
Discrimination from the BPD goes beyond the officers themselves, said Wu, it exists in technology used by law enforcement. Last year Wu was one of the many city councillors who voted to ban racially discriminatory face surveillance from the BPD, making Boston the second-largest city in the world to do so.
Wu said she will continue to push forward in shifting “not just the structure, but the culture” of the BPD by transitioning to a public health approach to public safety. “I am committed in my first 100 days to ensure that we are connecting and expanding access to medication assisted treatment and care that patients need.”
Despite their different methods of confronting public safety in Boston, both candidates agreed that racism and discrimination in the BPD is critical to the well-being of the city and its residents.
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