Following an ACLU lawsuit, the Boston Police Department on Jan. 8 released four more years of stop-and-frisk data from its encounters between police and civilians, from Jan. 2011 to April 2015. Like an earlier, similar release covering 2007-2010, the new data showed another alarming disparity: although Black people make up only about a quarter of Boston's population, police stop and frisk Black people more than 60 percent of the time.
So we asked for more data. On Jan. 15, we sent BPD a letter, asking again for regular release of this data—without a lawsuit—and specifically asking for the data from May 2015 to December 2015. We have also asked for a racial-disparity metric to be incorporated into Boston's CityScore.
We got some of what we asked for. The BPD has responded with this letter and released two more months of data, adding it to this city website.
We look forward to journalists, concerned citizens and others reviewing this data to learn more about racially discriminatory policing, and welcome BPD's steps toward greater openness.
