Why Michelle Wu Wants to Bring a Green New Deal to Boston The mayoral candidate’s plans would reimagine life for Boston's working-class residents—and has earned an endorsement from Senator Elizabeth Warren. Eoin Higgins
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s Legacy of Empty Promises There may be one reason for local progressives to support Walsh for the U.S. secretary of labor: He’ll leave town. Jerry Iannelli
Public Transportation Should Be Free The COVID-19 pandemic has made it impossible for us to ignore this any longer. Michelle Wu
The Suffolk County DA’s Attack On Public Defenders Was Misguided During a Boston radio show where Rachael Rollins accused defenders of harming Black and Brown communities, the DA demonstrated that she misunderstands the role that prosecutors play in the criminal legal system: caging those very people. Premal Dharia, Jullian Harris-Calvin
Curbing COVID-19 Means A Moratorium On Unnecessary Arrests In Boston, it’s worse than business as usual at the police department as the pandemic spreads. On a recent day, officers arrested people for charges the district attorney has publicly declined to prosecute. Will Isenberg
Prosecutors Across U.S. Call for Action to Mitigate Spread of Coronavirus in Jails and Prisons In a joint statement, they emphasized the need to reduce the number of people currently incarcerated in order to contain the deadly COVID-19 virus. Jessica Pishko
Joe Kennedy III Says He Is Running A Progressive Senate Campaign. But He Worked For One Of The Most Regressive D.A.s In Massachusetts In his run for president, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has been forced to address his consulting past. Kennedy should do the same about his work. Will Isenberg
Massachusetts Prosecutors Are Using ‘Dangerousness’ Holds To Keep People Incarcerated Pretrial Advocates say that despite the election of several progressive prosecutors in the state, there’s a substantial increase in such detentions, which are stymieing gains made through policies to limit cash bail. Joshua Vaughn
How Local Media Should Report on Safe Injection Sites In a rare case of local media nuance, a Boston TV news station provided a humane and health-focused segment on safe drug use. Adam H. Johnson
Pulling Back the Curtain on Boston’s ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ Most coverage of police raids targeting homeless people and substance users parroted official—and fraught—talking points. Jonathan Ben-Menachem
A No-Holds-Barred Assault on Prosecutors Attorney General William Barr pushed back against reforms by progressive prosecutors—but perhaps his greatest vitriol was reserved for the Boston DA’s attempt to rein in police. John Pfaff
Boston Globe Accused of ‘Willie Horton’-Style Fearmongering Nineteen academics published a letter to the newspaper over its coverage of the Suffolk County DA. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Suffolk County D.A. Rachael Rollins’s Office is Still Prosecuting Cases She Pledged to Drop Boston’s top prosecutor says big changes are in the works; advocates plan to keep pushing. Emma Whitford
Boston’s New D.A. Pushes Back Against Prosecutors’ ‘Punishment-centric’ Point of View Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s promise to decline to prosecute several offenses is a rejection of the punitive tradition of prosecutors and perhaps signals a new kind of reform that spurns criminal justice as a solution to public health problems. John Pfaff
