{"id":7755,"date":"2022-12-12T12:32:47","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T16:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/?p=7755"},"modified":"2023-05-30T13:45:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T17:45:33","slug":"ghb-news-amid-calls-to-increase-policing-at-mass-and-cass-overtime-spending-surges-under-mayor-wu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/2022\/12\/12\/ghb-news-amid-calls-to-increase-policing-at-mass-and-cass-overtime-spending-surges-under-mayor-wu\/","title":{"rendered":"GHB News: Amid calls to increase policing at Mass. and Cass, overtime spending surges under Mayor Wu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

By Tori Bedford, Photo: Tori Bedford \/ GBH News<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contributing students were Walker Armstrong, Eunyeong Park, Lily Kepner and Matthew Batacan, with assistance from faculty members Brooke Williams and Langdon White.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last year, hundreds of people living in tents along the intersection of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue faced a traumatizing nightly choice: to freeze outside or risk theft, COVID-19 exposure or abuse at a nearby shelter.<\/p>\n

At the same time, residents in the area felt unsafe<\/a> in their homes and neglected by city officials, as crime rates increased and previous efforts to solve the crisis offered only hopelessness.<\/p>\n

Mayor Michelle Wu \u2014 from her very first day in office \u2014 promised to transform the troubled stretch known as Mass. and Cass, a crossroads in the heart of Boston marked by a concentration of homelessness, substance use disorder, mental health issues, poverty and crime.<\/p>\n

One year into her tenure, Wu faces criticism from all sides: state officials, residents and business owners are calling for a tougher crackdown on crime, while public health experts say more resources are needed for treatment and housing.<\/p>\n

Some of Wu\u2019s critics argue that her stated mission<\/a> to \u201clead with public health, not criminalization\u201d went too far \u2014 with too much money spent on the unhoused and not enough on policing.<\/p>\n

But data obtained by GBH News shows the Wu administration is continuing to pump more resources into an already years-long surge of police overtime at Mass. and Cass.<\/p>\n

In the first 10 months of Wu\u2019s tenure, up through August 2022, Boston police logged more than $4 million in overtime payments in the area, according to police payroll records.<\/p>\n

Between 2021 and August 2022, the city spent around $8 million on police overtime, payroll data show \u2014 nearly double the $4.3 million spent in the previous two years combined.<\/p>\n

Read the full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read GBH’s article on the increase in policing being committed to Boston’s homeless population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21945,"featured_media":7756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,310],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7755"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8460,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7755\/revisions\/8460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cds-faculty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}