On December 31, 2020, Governor Baker signed into law, effective
Enforcement in the Commonwealth. The Act directly addresses issues of
racial inequality, both within law enforcement and beyond. For law
enforcement, it establishes a municipal police training committee to set policies
and standards for the training of municipal police officers, among other
categories of law enforcement personnel. The training curriculum must include
programs on de-escalation tactics, hate crime identification, regulation of the
use of physical force, and appropriate interactions with persons with intellectual
or developmental disabilities or issues with mental wellness. Municipal police
officers must be certified by the state, and those certifications require periodic
retraining and renewal. Certain police responses, such as the use of choke
holds or rubber bullets, are prohibited.
There are many other provisions that affect municipal operations. The Act
imposes a penalty of treble damages and potential imprisonment on a law
enforcement officer who submits a false record of hours worked. It requires
municipal police departments, before September 21, 2021, to submit
disciplinary records of its officers to the newly established Peace Officer
Standards and Training Commission. It amends the Public Records Act so as
to deem “records related to a law enforcement misconduct investigation” to be
producible as public records. It also creates several commissions empowered
to submit policy recommendations to the Legislature and executive agencies to
improve the treatment of groups that historically have been treated unequally in
the Commonwealth.
