About

History

SPCP stands for "Strengthening Police Community Partnerships".  This is a program established by the Department of Justice to improve the relationship between a community and its police force, started in 2018 in Erie, PA and Topeka, KS.

In the early 2020's, a dispute arose between the police chief at that time, Chief Ryder, and several other Boxborough town officials.  The dispute led to a separation agreement between the Town of Boxborough and Chief Ryder, and left a sense of bitterness among community members.

Upon becoming permanent Chief of Police in April 2023, Chief John Szewczyk reached out to the Department of Justice's Community Relations Service (CRS) to explore bringing the DOJ's SPCP program to town to improve police-community relations.  Chief Szewczyk invited Darryck Dean (DOJ Lead Conciliation Specialist) to the June 26th, 2023 Select Board Meeting where the program was discussed in detail.  Chief Szewczyk then identified a working group of community members (business leaders, faith-based leaders, elected officials, town and school officials, etc.) to work alongside himself and Mr. Dean and over the next eight months they planned the March 16th, 2024 event.

In September of 2024, the Boxborough SPCP Council began to have monthly meetings.  The group formed a charter, established an email address for communication purposes, and began to publish summaries of their meetings in the Boxborough News.  These articles were often also published in the printed version of the Action Unlimited.

The council has been meeting monthly, year-round, since September of 2024; and has made some progress in making the activities of the Boxborough Police Department more visible to the public.  The council helped establish a monthly summary of statistics from the BPD, improved the police log by getting the BPD to extract Boxborough items from the regional dispatch log, covered community-building events by Chief Szewczyk, and designed a community survey to gather data on the school resource officer (SRO) program.  The latest effort is the establishment of this website and the drop box for collecting community input.

The next steps for the SPCP Council are up to you.  If you have issues you would like the council to look into, or suggestions for improving the way the Boxborough PD operates, send us your feedback.  The Boxborough SPCP is eager to help.

Get Involved

You can influence the way the Boxborough Police Department operates in a couple of ways.

1. Join the SPCP.

2. Send us your input.  See the Contact page for links and other methods to provide input.

Tell us about your encounters

Ask us about police procedure

Advise us so we can improve policing

Attached Documents