House and Senate Leadership have appointed a conference committee to reconcile their respective bills. The conference committee — Sen. Brownsberger, Sen. Sonia Chang Diaz, Sen. Tarr, Rep. Cronin, Rep. Gonzalez, and Rep. Whelan — will work on a consensus bill, which will have to be voted on and then sent to the Governor.
Please urge your legislators and Governor Charlie Baker to support the strongest bill possible.
From the SENATE Bill:
(1) Section 10, which enables victims of police abuse to seek redress in the courts
(2) Sections 34-40, which require transparency and public decision-making about local police acquisition of military equipment such as tanks, grenade launchers, and armored vehicles
(3) Section 37, which establishes a Justice Workforce Reinvestment Fund
(4) Section 49, which prohibits schools from transmitting to law enforcement personal information about students or their family members
(5) Section 50, which permits school superintendents to determine whether or not police should be assigned to local schools.
(6) Section 52, which bans racial and other profiling, requires data collection for all stops, frisks, and searches with, analysis, reporting, and accountability if the data demonstrates profiling
(7) Sections 59-61, which clarify that individuals petitioning for expungement may do so for more than one record and creates a limited, rather than indefinite, lookback period for expungement eligibility.
(8) Language in Section 55 – 2(f) that requires police to plan for de-escalation in advance of protests or gatherings
From the HOUSE bill:
(1) Section 2, which clarifies that law enforcement misconduct records are public records
(2) Section 25, which restricts government use of facial surveillance
(3) Section 78, which establishes reasonable safeguards around the use of no-knock warrants
(4) The definition of “choke hold” in Section 29
