Black offenders made up the majority of those arrested by the Harvard University Police Department in 2022, according to newly released data from the department, which was recently accused of “racial policing” after four black students were victims of a swatting raid.
A June 17 article in the Harvard Crimson described the arrest rate as “disproportionate to the makeup of both Cambridge and Harvard’s populations.”
While 10.6 percent of Cambridge residents, 6.7 percent of Harvard students and 6.8 percent of faculty and staff are black, 56 percent of people arrested or served criminal complaints in 2022 were black, the student newspaper reported.
“The proportion — 23 out of 41 arrests in 2022 — marks the highest rate in at least three years as the department has continued to arrest Black people disproportionately,” the Crimson reported.