A survey just released by the Boston Police Department found that 80 percent of black Bostonians had confidence in the police. It's a stunning figure, given that nationally the number is only 34 percent.It's especially stunning given Boston's sordid racial past.

A scant 10 years ago, Boston had apparently cemented its reputation for hard-core racism with the Stuart murder case, where a husband killed his wife and then blamed a black mugger. For a few nights, as police searched for the alleged killer, it seemed that every black male in Boston was guilty of something.

The Stuart case left blacks distrustful of the police. Yet a decade later, there has been a remarkable turnaround. What happened?

Paul Evans, appointed commissioner in early 1994, remembers talking with leaders of the city's anti-gang units. He asked what resources they needed. The answer, he figured, would be, ``More cops, more judges, more jail space.''

Instead, the response was, ``Jobs and alternatives.''

It turns out that those 1960s liberals who claimed that crime was society's problem were, in a sense, right all along. That's not to say that Evans thinks it's OK to let lawbreakers off the hook. Indeed, as part of its zero-tolerance policy toward crime, the department increasingly has refused to look the other way at seemingly minor crimes, such as graffiti.

But Evans' insight was one that, in retrospect, might seem like common sense. Well-educated people with good jobs rarely commit the random street crimes that are most destructive to residential communities. It's those with no education, no job and no future who are most likely to break the law.

The solution? Give them a future. Identify the high-risk kids and work with their families and communities. Get them into a mentoring program. Find an after-school activity. Get them a job.

But doing that work required reaching out to the community, creating partnerships with individuals and groups that could speak for the neighborhoods. The police couldn't do it alone.

Boston's African-American community rose to the challenge.

It's not the politicians who hold real power in Boston's black community. It's the churches. Indeed, on Sundays it seems there are more black churchgoers than there are voters at election time.  Ministers like Ray Hammond, Susie Thomas, Eugene Rivers, Wesley Roberts, Alex Hurt and Gilbert Thompson wield enormous influence on the daily lives of their parishioners.

After the Stuart debacle and a subsequent stabbing during a funeral at the Morning Star Baptist Church, the ministers concluded that saving Boston's black community meant not just spiritual salvation but also creating safe communities. Rather than warring with each other, the churches established alliances such as the Ten-Point Coalition, the Black Ministerial Alliance, Freedom House and the Ella J. Baker House.

And in Mayor Thomas Menino and Commissioner Evans, they had two men with whom they could deal.

Evans put a more human face on the police force. He strongly supported the department's legally mandated effort to hire and promote more minority officers, making the force look more like the communities it was policing. He instituted strategic planning sessions with each neighborhood to build trust. He pushed for neighborhood policing, keeping the same cops responsible for one neighborhood. He got cops out of cars and onto bikes or on foot.

Thus, Mark Buchanan, an active member of Bethel AME and a cop, got to know troubled kids in Roxbury and north Dorchester and worked with them, their families and their churches. Fabio Cabrera, the beat officer at the Villa Victoria public housing complex in the South End, took kids fishing and to Symphony Hall. The police department put 10 licensed clinical social workers on staff and contributed millions in grants to nonprofit groups that help get kids off the streets.

Menino backed Evans' efforts with extensive city investments in areas such as Roxbury's Grove Hall and along Mattapan's Blue Hill Avenue.

Boston's success has received much attention from the national media and other police departments. But it's a success few cities have been able to replicate, in large part, says the Rev. Alex Hurt, because either those cities' minority communities are unorganized or their police departments are not as enlightened as Boston's.

Boston's progress is, as Evans notes, ``very fragile.'' The trauma of busing, housing segregation and the Stuart murder are near to the surface of Boston's collective psyche. A bad case, one akin to the fatal shooting in Providence of a black police officer by white cops, could upset all our progress.

Still, Boston now is in an enviable position. The city's administration, the police force and the African-American community are working together. Crime is down. Perhaps more important, racial wounds that were decades in the making have begun to heal.

Tom Keane writes regularly for the Herald. He can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.