Crime wave follows funding cuts

Yawu Miller

Mayor Thomas Menino announced last week that Boston Police would target the city’s high-crime areas for intensive enforcement in an effort apparently aimed at reversing the city’s growing crime rate.

Police officials have identified 10 areas with the highest incidences of violent crimes and pledged to work with federal agents and immigration officials to round up people with outstanding warrants or immigration violations.

The initiative is the latest the city has unveiled in its efforts to combat rising gun violence. With 67 murders so far this year, the city’s murder rate is at its highest in ten years.

At the same time, the city’s Homicide Squad has one of the worst clearance rates of any major city in the country, with arrests amounting to fewer than a third of murders committed since 2004.

While Menino’s recent spat with merchants who sell “Stop Snitchin’” tee shirts grabbed headlines, anti-crime activists interviewed by the Banner say the best antidotes to crime may not garner news coverage. Youth programming, which has suffered from budget cuts at the state and federal level, is widely seen as essential to preventing crime.

“I don’t think anyone should be surprised by what’s happening now,” said Lisa Thurau Gray, managing director of the Suffolk University Juvenile Justice Center. “We’ve gutted after school programming for teenagers.”

With much of the city’s crime taking place between the 2 p.m. time when students are released from high schools and the 6 p.m. time when most parents come home, after school programming is widely seen as a critical component of prevention. But when state revenues took a dive in 2002, many programs aimed at teenagers closed shop, leaving a vacuum of structured activity.

Teen Empowerment Executive Director Stanley Pollack says the budget cuts left teenagers in the city without many viable options.

“We were in a forest of programs,” Pollack said. “And then, all of a sudden, we were a lone tree. There were a lot more programs that were hiring youth and training youth. It all added to a picture that had a lot more hope and opportunity.”

State funding cuts for programs including anti-tobacco, teen pregnancy and AIDS prevention initiatives tend to have a multiplier effect. While social service agencies were able to employ a limited number of teenagers with the funds, those teenagers were able to organize and reach out to numerous other teens, according to Pollack.

State Senator Jarrett Barrios, who heads the Criminal Justice Committee is sponsoring a bill that would pump $11 million into anti-crime programs across the state. But Larry Mays, who heads the city’s Health and Human Services Department, says the amount proposed is too little.

“We think the money should be three times as much,” he said. “We need resources that go to community-based organizations to do the kind of work that keeps young people away from negative activities.”

Funding cuts at the federal level have also had an impact. Boston Housing Authority developments have seen funding for everything from security to community centers and youth programming slashed. Teenagers in public housing developments complain of few recreational opportunities.

Another factor that has exacerbated crime is the return from incarceration of criminals who were sentenced to prison in the 1990s. While many are released into probation and are targeted for intervention by police officers, clergy members and street workers, many are released without probation and with no supervision.

With criminal records, many ex-convicts are unable to secure gainful employment and are at risk of returning to crime.

“All the bad policies of the past are coming home to roost,” said Thurau Gray.

While Pollack acknowledges that enforcement is needed, he says police and policy makers must be careful not to vilify teens.

“We’re in a phase where we’re looking at young people as the problem,” he said. “But they can also provide a lot of potential solutions to problems. If they feel like they’re part of a community, they can resolve conflicts and convince their peers not to be part of gangs.”

Teen Empowerment, which has headquarters in the South End and operates programs in many of the city’s high schools, is looking to open a satellite office in Dorchester.

The organization sponsors annual peace summits and fosters dialogue between teenagers and police officers. The communication that Teen Empowerment seeks between law enforcement and the community is equally important for adults, according to City Councilor Chuck Turner.

“There’s an atmosphere of fear and distrust of the police,” he said. “The police department needs to organize itself so that people have more trust in them.”

Turner noted that many of the department’s special units that are most focused on violent crime, including the Youth Violence Strike Force, have few officers of color.

“You have people working in the community who don’t have a lot of knowledge of our community,” he commented.

Turner has been meeting with members of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers to discuss ways of forging better relations between police officers and neighborhood residents.