Resources
Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre. The Boston Massacre is an early and well-known instance of police brutality in Boston. On March 5, 1770, British soldiers shot into a crowd of Boston citizens who were taunting them. Five people were killed and several others were wounded. Though the British commander and most of the soldiers were acquitted at trial, the incident became a rallying cry for the American Revolution.
LEGAL SERVICES AND LAWYER REFERRAL SERVICES
Prisoners' Legal Services (formerly MCLS)
Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service
National Lawyers Guild Lawyer Referral Service
Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI)
CIVIL RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS AND BLOGS
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLUM)
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCR)
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association (LCCR-BBA)
Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty (MCADP)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Families Against Mandatory Minumums
POLICE AND POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY ORGANIZATIONS
National Police Accountability Project (NPAP)
National Police Misconduct Reporting Project
LAWYERS ASSOCIATIONS
Asian-American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts (AALAM)
Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA)
American Bar Association Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section (ABA IRR)
Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys (MATA)
National Lawyers Guild, Massachusetts Chapter (NLG-Mass.)
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE WORK WE DO, WE RECOMMEND THESE BOOKS ABOUT PRISONS, POLICE MISCONDUCT, WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Each of these books examines part of the criminal justice system and shows how the system is unjust. These books are not legal research. You do not have to be a lawyer to understand them.
A World Apart: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars, by Cristina Rathbone
All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated, by Nell Bernstein
Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons, by Ayelet Waldman
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander
The Fence, by Dick Lehr
Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town, by Nate Blakeslee
A Cinderella Affidavit, by Michael Fredrickson
Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, by Joey Mogul, Andrea Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock
The Real Cost of Prisons Comix, by Lois Ahrens
Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right, by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and Jim Dwyer
Convicting the Innocent, by Brandon Garrett
Above the Law Police and the Excessive Use of Force, by Jerome H. Skolnick and James J. Fyfe
Police Brutality, edited by Jill Nelson
Driving While Black, by Kenneth Meeks
Power Concedes Nothing, by Connie Rice
Police Power: Police Abuses in New York City, by Paul Chevigny
Edge of the Knife, by Paul Chevigny
Breaking the Blue Wall: One Man's War Against Police Corruption, by Justin Hopson
The NYPD Tapes: A Shocking Story of Cops, Cover-ups, and Courage, by Graham A. Rayman
The New World of Police Accountability, by Samuel E. Walker and Carol A. Archbold
The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding, by Sarah Burns
The Conservative Assault on the Constitution, by Erwin Chemerinsky
Newjack: Guarding Sing-Sing, by Ted Conover
Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian, by Avi Steinberg
The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South, by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington
I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street, by Matt Taibbi