DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE
CONTEXT
WHERE/WHEN APPLICABLE
HISTORY
RESPONSES

DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE:
Crime and the perception of crime can have an enormous impact on neighborhood safety and the extent to which people take advantage of community resources in the Heart of the City. Understanding the trends and geography of both violent crime in the area and the perception of crime can contribute to effective strategies for increased public safety in public places.

Back to top


CONTEXT:
In Boston as a whole, crime is a less central concern in 2002 than it was in the late 1990s. In 1997, "crime" was the highest concern of Boston residents, followed by "school system" and "drug sales." In 1999 "school system" was the highest concern, followed by "nothing" and "traffic" (Boston Indicators of Progress, Change and Sustainability, 2000). Residents of Boston are, in general, feeling safer and more secure.

Back to top


WHERE/ WHEN APPLICABLE:
Overall decrease in crime in the Heart of the City:
Crime is a reality of urban life and has often been cited as the reason people do not want to visit the commercial, historic, and open space resources in the Heart of the City. But over the course of the past decade, crime rates in the Heart of the City have decreased significantly. Between 1996 and 2000, violent crime decreased 20% in Boston as a whole, with a 31% decrease in Roxbury and Mission Hill (District B2) and a 22% decrease in Mattapan and South Dorchester (District B3). Only in Jamaica Plain did violent crime increase (by 15%). And, although the total incidence of crime increased slightly in Dorchester between 1994 and 1998, the total number of crime incidents decreased in Jamaica Plain, Mattapan/ Franklin Field, Roslindale, and Roxbury over this same time period.

Geographic concentrations of violent crime:
Despite this success, more progress can still be made -- particularly in the neighborhoods east and north of Franklin Park, where violent crime continues to be concentrated. The geography of homicides in the Heart of the City is striking. In 1998, all nine homicides committed in the Heart of the City occurred east of Franklin Park in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan (Boston Consulting Group analysis for the Green Triangle Group, 2001). In 2000, five of the seven homicides in the Heart of the City occurred east of Franklin Park.

And, although violent crime incidents/ attempts in Roxbury per 1,000 residents have decreased significantly each year from 1999 through 2001, Roxbury continues to have the highest rate of violent crime incidents/ attempts of all Boston neighborhoods. Between 1999 and 2001, the Grove Hall area had the greatest incidences of drug crimes, vehicle theft, and burglary per reporting area of any major commercial center in the Heart of the City, while Centre Street/ South Street had the lowest incidence of drug crimes over this time period per reporting area (Boston Police Department Office of Research and Evaluation, 2002).


Summer 2003:
As is common in the summer months, tensions agitated by the increased outdoor time, unemployment, and ailing economy have disrupted the Heart of the City's low crime rate in the summer of 2003.  As of August 2003, experts say the spike can be seen only as an exception to the norm (Michael S. Rosenwald and Nicholas Zamiska, "Answers are sought as volence plauges a neighborhood," The Boston Globe,  July 3, 2003).

2004:
Despite the decline in violent crimes over the past decade, 2004 became the deadliest of the last three years in the Heart of the City. The death toll represents a 56% increase from the homicides committed in 2003. A total of 64 individuals were killed in Boston's streets in 2004. The majority of the deaths occurred in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan (Laurel Sweet, "Hub's Homicide Tally Deadliest Since 2001," The Boston Globe, December 31, 2004).

Violent crime incidents/ attempts per 1,000 residents by neighborhood, 1999-2001:
(Boston Police Department and the Boston Indicators of Change and Sustainability, 2003):    

                           1999           2000            2001
___________________________________________
JP (5)                      10.7               11.6             11.9
___________________________________________
Mattapan (3)          17.3               18.3             15.3
__________________________________________
N. Dor. (4)              15.3               15.6             12.4
___________________________________________
Ros. (6)                     6.4                 5.8              6.8  
__________________________________________
Rox. (1)                  28.5              26.6               24.9
___________________________________________

Other general trends in crime:
In the Heart of the City, property crimes are consistently more common than violent crimes. Almost universally, between 1999 and 2002, larceny/ attempted larceny was the most common type of crime in the Heart of the City.

While burglary and attempted burglary were scattered somewhat evenly throughout the Heart of the City in 2000, robbery/ attempted robbery were concentrated along major roads, including Blue Hill Avenue, Centre/ South Street, and Washington Street.

Property crime incidents/ attempts per 1,000 residents by neighborhood, 1999-2001
(Boston Police Department and the Boston Indicators of Change and Sustainability, 2003):

                  1999     2000      2001      
JP (3)            46.3      49.5       51.2
____________________________________
Mat. (5)         35.2       35         36.1
____________________________________
N. Dor. (1)     59.7      63.1       65.3
____________________________________
Ros. (6)         29.8      23.3       26.4
____________________________________
Rox. (2)         51.8      57.6       60.4
____________________________________
S. Dor. (4)     38.6       36.7       44.4
_______________________________

Boston         47.2      48.5        51

Heart of the City police precincts are as follows:
E-18 - Roslindale (and Hyde Park, including the Forest Hills Cemetery and the west campus of the Boston State Hospital site)

B-2 - Roxbury (and Mission Hill, including Franklin Park)

B-3 - Mattapan, western Dorchester

E-13 - Jamaica Plain (north of Forest Hills Station, including the Arnold Arboretum, the
Southwest Corridor Park, and Jamaica Pond)

E-5 - Roslindale (and west Roxbury)

Crime incidences in commercial areas between 1999 and 2001 per Police Reporting Area:   

                           Drugs           Vehicle theft         Burglary
___________________________________________________
Egleston Sq.             9                        13                        6
___________________________________________________
Centre St.                  1                        11                       5
___________________________________________________
Grove Hall                14                        20                      11
___________________________________________________
Roslindale Sq.            3                        5                        5


Back to top




HISTORY:
Over the course of the 1990s, Boston police, community groups, and case workers developed innovative strategies for community policing that deeply influence the way Boston fights crime. In 1990 -- a high watermark year for crime in Boston -- 80% of the city's murders occurred in police areas B and C (in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan), where only 30% of the city's population lives. Over the course of 1990, two out of three murder victims were black and the majority of these violent crimes were committed by youth involved in gangs (Levine & Harmon,The Death of an American Jewish Community, 1992).

Seventy three of the homicide victims in 1990 were youth. This number represented a 230 percent increase in youth homicides over three years. The vast majority of young victims and perpetrators lived in the Heart of the City. Most victims were gang members. Gangs caused many residents to live in fear and discouraged them from venturing into the community.

The violence reached a symbolic peak in 1992 at a funeral service for a young gang member at Morning Star Baptist Church on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan. During the service, gang members spotted a member of a rival gang, chased him through the church, shot at him, and stabbed him repeatedly while the congregation fled in fear.

In the wake of this tragedy, seven African American ministers and a church worker formed the Ten Point Coalition, an organization that would become an international model for collaborations between communities and law enforcement agents. Department of Youth Services social workers, law enforcement agencies, clergy, and local universities collaborated for the first time. Strategies were diverse and included the "adoption" of local gangs by individual churches and jailing entire groups of hardened gang members. At the same time, the partnership worked to match troubled youth with appropriate social services.

The partnership is widely acknowledged as being partially responsible for the 27% decrease in violent crimes between 1993 and 1997 in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, and a decrease of 28% in property crimes between 1993 and 1997. From the highwater mark of 73 youth homicides in 1990, the rate dropped to ten by 1997. Beginning in August 1995, there was a 29-month period during which Boston had no teenage homicide victims (Pruitt, Bettye. The Boston Strategy: A Story of Unlikely Alliances).


Back to top


RESPONSES:
-- The Boston Ten Point Coalition, in cooperation with the Boston Police Department and others, continues to address gang-related violent crime through community partnerships. 

-- Some Police Districts in the Heart of the City have Strategic Planning Groups, Crime Watches, and other strategies to encourage citizens to communicate with the police department and participate in the work of keeping the streets safe.

-- In recent years, the Boston Police Department has identified a number of "hot spots" for gun violence or violent crime. They have, at times, concentrated their energies in these relatively small areas where a disproportionate level of violence tends to take place.

-- Neighborhood organizations and crime watches are encouraged to invite local police officers to listen to and address crime-related concerns.

-- At his State of the City Address on January 11, 2005, Mayor Menino announced his plans for the B-SMART program in an effort to combat youth crime and violence. Menino believes the adult mentoring program will help decrease youth violence by providing a "multi-agency task force." The program will increase the number of mentors working on the streets from 20 to 30 adults, who befriend at risk teenagers. Areas targeted by the B-SMART program will be: the South End, Roxbury, Morton Street, East Boston, Grove Hall, Franklin Hill and Franklin Field (Suzanne Smalley, "On These Mean Streets, Hope Guards City Youths," The Boston Globe, January 13, 2005).

-- In January 2005, the City of Boston was awarded grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Charles Stewart Matt Foundation to fund research concerning high school drop out rates (Suzanne Smalley, "On These Mean Streets, Hope Guards City Youths," The Boston Globe, January 13, 2005).


Back to top