Reducing Racial Disparities through Decriminalization in Massachusetts: What Seems to Work and What Makes Matters Worse

While the sanction attached to criminalization is undoubtedly important, a vast array of sociological literature demonstrates the ways in which the reach of the criminal legal system extends far beyond the legal sanction alone, which typically represents the final stage of the legal process.4 Jordan Blair Woods, for instance, highlights how one’s interactions with the criminal legal system are sha. [...] Police behavior and enforcement mediate the impacts of sanctions – and can do so even after those sanctions are removed – as the law grants significant discretion in who they stop and why.5 Thus, since narrowing the scope of policing is critical to effective decriminalization, decriminalization should emphasize the enforcement of sanctions as well as the reduction or elimination of sanctions. [...] The amended law states that any action reclassified as legal under the law cannot be used as the basis for “the seizure or forfeiture of any property of the person or for the imposition of a civil penalty,” thereby curtailing a significant tool, and motivation, for searches and arrests.19 While there is a lack of research dissecting the reasons for Nevada’s unique drop in disparities post-legaliza. [...] Marijuana Decriminalization and Legalization Despite comprising about 8% of the state population and roughly 6.6% of total marijuana users in the state, Black residents made up 24% of possession and 41% of sales arrests in 2014.22 Since 2000, residents of Massachusetts voted to decriminalize marijuana (2008); 23 the highest court in Massachusetts decreed that in order for police to conduct a motor. [...] Building on the momentum of the report, in June of 2021 the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management kicked off the Roundtable on Racial Disparities in Massachusetts Criminal Courts.