Op-Ed; Crime rate the key to Boston's future

THOMAS M. KEANE JR.
875 words
5 July 2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
027
English
(Copyright 2002)

A week ago Boston seemed a safe city. Today it does not.

The cause, of course, is the murder last weekend of 10-year-old Trina Persad.

The implications of her death go well beyond the tragedy that has befallen her family and friends. It shakes to the core the struggling Grove Hall neighborhood in which it occurred. It poses a huge challenge to a city government that had believed it had largely vanquished crime. And it could even upend the remarkable residential and economic renaissance Boston has experienced over the last decade.

Persad was struck by what appears to be an errant shotgun blast fired in some sort of gang battle. She was the true innocent: a little girl at play who was the random victim of crime.

And random crimes are the scariest of all. True, we all read with fascination cases of murder and violence that involve family members or friends plotting against each other. But, for the most part, these do not strike dread in our hearts for the simple reason that most of us believe our friends or our families would never do that to us.

But there was nothing that Trina Persad could reasonably have done to avoid the blast that struck her - nothing, that is, except not live in Boston.

And that is a profoundly disturbing realization.

Cities like Boston were once thought doomed to lose population and businesses to the ever-expanding suburbs. Twenty years ago, few would have given the aging and tired Boston much of a chance. Today it has defied expectations. People are moving INbusiness - despite the recession - is booming, and the place has the burnish and luster of new chrome.

That rejuvenation, however, can be traced to one thing: Boston succeeded in making itself feel safe.

In 1975, crime in the city had hit an all-time high. The number of serious crimes (what the police department calls "Part One" crimes, ranging from homicide, rape and other violent crimes to burglary and robbery) exceeded 80,000. In a city of approximately 600,000, that meant the odds of becoming a victim were startlingly high. Residents feared to go outside, particularly at night. Outsiders feared to visit. No wonder those who could afford to leave did so.

The high crime numbers persisted through the remainder of the 1970s and the 1980s. But at the beginning of the 1990s, things took a turn for the better. Boston hired more police officers, adopted a community-based crime fighting strategy and the police began working with community groups to identify potential criminals and stop them before they committed a crime.

The number of Part One crimes dropped precipitously, falling to a low of 34,981 by 1998. And at some, almost magical moment, what writer Malcolm Gladwell calls the "tipping point," occurred. Instead of being "Fear City," Boston seemed a place of safe neighborhoods.

The results were startling. Boston boomed. It rapidly gained a reputation as one of the nation's most habitable cities. Where once people had been fleeing for the suburbs, now they moved back. The city's issues - such as a jump in housing costs or pell-mell development - became those of managing its new success.

Is Trina Persad's death another tipping point? Does it mark the end of Boston's boom?

Much has been made of the fact that last year the number of murders jumped to 66, more than double that of 1999's low of 31. And this year's murder rate is on track to match that of 2001.

All of this is creating a sense that things may be spinning out of control. Gang crime is on the rise. Community leaders once enamored with the Boston model of policing are now expressing frustration. The explanations from the mayor's office and the police department are all over the place - fewer summer jobs, changes in demographics, the recession and the recent release of once- incarcerated offenders have all been offered up as reasons. Mayor Thomas Menino has vowed to "redouble" crime-fighting efforts, although it's unclear what that can possibly mean; the city's just adopted budget, for example, actually spends less on public safety than it did last year.

The irony is that while perceptions may be changing, the underlying facts suggest there is no crisis. Part One crimes, a broader and better measure of public safety than just counting homicides, have not increased along with the murder rate. From 1998's low of almost 35,000, the number of Part One crimes has gone to 37,000 in 2001. This year so far (from January through April) there have been 11,394 Part One crimes, not much higher than last year's 10,902.

Any increase, of course, is disturbing but these are not the kinds of numbers that should cause panic. Yet, when it comes to public safety, perception trumps reality. If people believe themselves to be at risk, then they will leave for some other place that feels safer. That could be the undoing of all Boston has achieved.

Tom Keane can be reached at tom@tomkeane.com.

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