Home Page

 

 

 

 

 

ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES

 

June 2, 2005

Jeremy Schwab

City councilors hoping to change the way assets seized in drug busts are allocated criticized the Boston Police Department last week for using $187,000 in proceeds from drug-related seizures to pay a consulting firm to improve fingerprint analysis.

Councilor Charles Yancey blasted Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole for using the money, which came from the Law Enforcement Defense Fund, to pay Mississippi-based forensic consultants Ron Smith & Associates.

“I think those monies should be used for drug treatment, youth programs and crime watch and a small portion for drug buys for undercover police to catch drug dealers,” Yancey told the Banner.

Yancey and a majority of councilors recently signed on to legislation to funnel half the proceeds from assets seized in drug raids to detoxification programs, with the rest split between the BPD and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.

Currently, all of the proceeds go to the BPD and the district attorney’s office. Money from the fund has traditionally been used to meet a wide range of needs in the department, with a portion of it supposedly invested in what police call “community purposes,” according to Yancey. Yancey said he has been trying unsuccessfully for six months to find out from the BPD details on the use of the fund.

The use of revenue to improve fingerprint analysis further demonstrates why there should be a law to ensure that the money goes to drug prevention and treatment instead, said Yancey.

“I think it is important we make a policy statement that those monies should be used to prevent crime,” he said. “There is more than $200 million in the operating budget for the police department, and I think that is the appropriate place to hire people to deal with fingerprint problems.”

A press office spokesman at the police department could not be reached for comment before the Banner’s press deadline.

Councilor Chuck Turner, who authored the home rule petition calling for half the money to be diverted to detoxification programs, disagreed with Yancey that the BPD could have found the money to upgrade its fingerprint analysis in its general operating budget.

“Given the understaffing of the police department, it is difficult for me to identify areas in the police department budget that could be used for fingerprinting, but I think this is another area where we need help from the federal government,” he said.

Turner said that the state and federal tax base must be expanded by taxing the rich more and closing corporate loopholes in order to pay for the fingerprint analysis and a whole slew of government programs that have been pinched in recent years following the economic downturn and President George W. Bush’s tax cuts.

Observers agree that the department needs to create a stronger fingerprint unit after O’Toole in November nixed the flawed unit whose work falsely linked Roxbury resident Stephan Cowans to the shooting of a Boston police officer.

“When it comes to fingerprinting, the worst thing that could happen to individuals is a job is so random that you end up in jail because of shoddy analysis,” said Councilor Felix Arroyo.

But Arroyo, like colleagues Yancey and Turner, has signed on to the home rule petition that would funnel money away from the police and DA and toward treatment. The petition would need to be passed by the council, the mayor and the state Legislature in order to become law.

Recent government funding cuts have led to a drastic drop in the number of detoxification treatment beds available in the Boston area on any given day. Five years ago, there were around 900 beds, but today there are only around 500, according to Bill Carrick, program director at the CAB Boston Treatment Center.

“The drug policy is essentially focused on arresting people who are selling it and doing nothing to stop the flow or provide help for those in recovery,” said Turner. “So it is not a drug policy. It is a criminalization policy.”

Back to Lead Story Archives

Home Page