Pamelia Harris arrives at Boston University after spending more than 30 years working her way up the ranks of the Boston Police Department. Photos by Jackie Ricciardi

BUPD

New BUPD Deputy Chief Brings Community-Centered Policing to the Forefront

Pamelia Harris is a Boston Police Department veteran, BU alum, and parent of a current Terrier

Almost every aspect of Pamelia Harris’ life has taken shape around Boston University. 

She was born in the South End’s Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center, BU’s primary teaching hospital), grew up in housing developments within spitting distance of the University’s Medical Campus, earned a master’s degree from BU, and now is the parent of a BU student. 

It made Harris’ recent arrival as Boston University Police Department’s (BUPD) new deputy chief its own kind of homecoming. 

“I want to make sure that my child and the other children and the staff and faculty at BU have a safe community and that BUPD does its part to make sure that that happens,” says Harris (MET’15).

After a 32-year career in the Boston Police Department (BPD), where she worked her way up from a cadet to the executive levels, Harris brings with her not only decades of expertise but a dedication to community-focused policing and the ways that law enforcement can evolve to best serve people.

“I had the opportunity to know and work with Pamelia during my years with the Boston Police Department, and I saw firsthand the respect she earned through her commitment to her colleagues and to the community,” says Kelly Nee, vice president of safety, security, and preparedness at BU. “She brings tremendous enthusiasm and energy to her work. But what has always stood out to me is her compassion and genuine concern for people. I’m thrilled to welcome her to Boston University and know she will be a tremendous addition to our leadership team.”

Harris’ ties to Boston are bone deep. They served as a grounding force even as she ascended the ranks at BPD.

She joined BPD as a cadet at 22 years old, and by the time she retired in 2026, she’d held the ranks of sergeant, sergeant detective, and deputy superintendent. She went on to work in BPD’s internal affairs, crimes against children unit, and  crime scene unit.

“I saw things in one day that no person should see in a lifetime,” Harris says. “Regardless of how much crime scene tape [you see] or how many press conferences [you go to]—that’s someone’s loved one. If it doesn’t bother you, then there’s something wrong with the observer.”

At every step, Harris saw her position as intimately connected to the community she had grown up in. She could look out her window at BPD headquarters in Roxbury and see the site of the Whittier Street housing developments where she’d spent much of her childhood.

Her proximity to her community—physically and emotionally—heavily informed her approach to law enforcement.

“Everything goes back to relationships, community policing, staying in touch, getting to know who your service reaches and allowing them to have some say in that,” Harris says. “Whether it’s in a professional or personal sense, it’s time for us to step up as a discipline and show that we care about the community and that we can be tailored to what the community needs.” 

To get others onboard with her community-centered idea of policing, Harris realized she would need to be an educator as well as a law enforcement officer. Within the crime scene unit, she worked as a training officer and as a certified Municipal Police Training Committee adjunct instructor at the Boston Police Department Academy. She also was an associate professor of criminal justice at Emmanuel College. She continued her own education, receiving a master’s in criminal justice administration from BU in 2015.

After retiring from BPD, Harris knew she didn’t want to completely hang up the badge yet. At BU, she says she still gets to use both her professional and education experience and serve a different part of the Boston community.

Her primary goal as deputy chief, she says, is to reintroduce law enforcement to the community, as an institution that’s more open, available, and integrated with the BU’s students, faculty, and staff.

“[We need] to go into spaces where we haven’t had the dialogue in the past and open new doors and build new relationships,” Harris says.

That might mean holding more public forums and pounding the pavement to talk with students and understand what they need—and don’t need—from BUPD. Walking around campus in uniform, she is already doing that work: forging relationships one conversation and one smile at a time. 

“Deputy Chief Harris brings a distinguished record of service to the city of Boston, exemplifying a dedication to community-focused policing,” BUPD Chief Rob Lowe says. “Deputy Harris’ collaborative leadership will be instrumental in advancing our department’s community policing philosophy and service to the University.”

When Harris first assumed a leadership role with the BPD, she took the standard professional oath to protect and serve the community. She also took a personal oath, one that she still follows at BU.

“I try to leave everything better than the way I found it,” Harris says. “If I can leave one person, one officer, one faculty person better than the way I found them, then I’ve done my job.”