For more information on policing in Massachusetts, see entry on Boston Police.
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The Winthrop Police Department partners with BRIC as one of the nine municipal police agencies in the Metropolitan Boston Homeland Security Region that participate in coordinated surveillance and information sharing. (The other municipalities are Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, Chelsea, Everett, Quincy, Revere, and Somerville).
As of 2016, the Winthrop Police Department was sharing and accessing information through COPLINK, a surveillance and criminalization platform developed by IBM and the software company i2, which has been called “Google for police officers." Through COPLINK, Winthrop Police officials share their field interviews along with arrest, complaint, accident, and citation reports with other departments who utilize the platform in MA and nationwide, and Winthrop Police officials are able to access the field interviews and arrest, complaint, accident, and citation reports of these other police departments. Agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "have direct access to the Massachusetts version of the COPLINK system," enabling ICE agents to access any information Winthrop Police officials enter into COPLINK and utilize this information to facilitate ICE's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations of Black and Brown migrants.
The Winthrop Police Department shares field interviews, arrest, complaint, accident, and citation reports, and other information through COPLINK, a surveillance and criminalization platform developed by IBM and the software company i2. Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "have direct access to the Massachusetts version of the COPLINK system," enabling ICE to access information Winthrop Police Department officers enter into COPLINK and utilize this information to facilitate ICE's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations.
The Winthrop Police Department is listed as a full member of the Greater Boston Police Council, a "law enforcement council" (LEC) set up in the 1970s to link regional police forces and share resources for policing anti-war protests. LECs in Massachusetts have played a central role in militarizing police by organizing SWAT teams and purchasing military equipment such as Lenco Bearcats and other armored vehicles.
Winthrop is one of nine cities designated as part of the Metro Boston Homeland Security Region (MBHSR). The JPOC makes plans and allocates funds from the Department of Homeland Security for projects aimed at integrating and militarizing police departments, fire departments and emergency services in the MBHSR. Allocations include funding for communications and surveillance technology and for SWAT teams. The Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), a Department of Homeland Security intelligence fusion center which runs Boston's racist "gang database," is a central project of the MBHSR.