Spike in homicide should stir
6 August 2004
A wave of shootings is sending shivers of fear through
Twelve days ago, a 23-year-old basketball coach was shot dead in front of his team at a Roxbury park.
Sunday, a stray bullet wounded an 11-year-old during football tryouts in the
South End. The same day, there was a stabbing and shooting of two men on the
Boston Common. Early Monday morning, three men were shot
- two fatally - in Grove Hall. Two days ago, a bullet struck a 15-year-old girl
as she hung out with friends at a
Are these just anomalies, an unconnected series of coincidences? Or do they signal something deeper, a return, perhaps, to the bad old days when residents dreaded walking outside and suburbs beckoned as havens of safety?
"There's no reason to panic," says Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley. But, he and other officials agree, something genuinely worrisome is at play.
The evidence for the "don't panic" side is strong.
Crime in
As crime fell, though, there have been periodic concerns that the bubble might be about to burst. Just a year ago, a rash of shootings raised alarms. Those worries subsided, however, when the fall and winter months proved relatively calm.
Yet this time around there are differences. For one, the most terrible of all crimes - homicide - has actually increased. And that increase is mirrored around the country, with recent FBI statistics suggesting an uptick in urban crime.
There are many theories as to why.
For example, males in their late teens and early 20s commit most crimes. During the 1990s, the proportion of the population in that demographic group was low. Now it's growing and, logically, that suggests the number of crimes will rise as well.
The state of the economy also matters. It's trite but true
that a good job is the best crime-fighting tool. Although
Meanwhile, many argue we let our guard down. When crime was
on the front page, it was a priority. Community groups mobilized. The number of
cops on the street increased and dollars poured into law enforcement. The very
success of that effort may have caused complacency, however. You can see it in
the numbers.
All of these explanations have merit. Yet one should be careful
not to treat crime as simply a sociological, economic
or budgetary phenomenon. Groups don't commit crimes; individuals do. And the current thinking by many city and law enforcement
officials is that a discrete number of hard-core offenders, newly back on city
streets, are the ones to blame for
Back in the 1980s, police and prosecutors devised new strategies to go after "impact players" - law enforcement jargon for the worst of the worst, the relatively few but extraordinarily vicious criminals behind much of the city's high crime rates. Anti-gang units targeted them for arrest and prosecutors used direct indictments to put them away.
Now they are getting out of jail. Some are seeking revenge. Others are looking to take back their turf.
About four years ago, anticipating this,
local law enforcement officials created "re-entry panels." The
panels convene monthly and meet with soon-to-be-released prisoners that the
police deem the most dangerous. Representatives from probation, parole, the
district attorney and the
Sometimes it works. Sometimes, though, the convicts ignore the whole thing.
We like to believe in redemption. We hope that people can get out of prison, turn a new page in their lives and become productive members of society. Often, perhaps even most times, that's possible.
But not always. The re-entry panels are a good idea, and doubtless will receive increasing attention in the months ahead. Yet the sad truth is that there are those who are irredeemably callous, those who have such a blatant disregard for human life that they think nothing of spraying bullets into a crowded neighborhood park.
Demographics, budget cuts and the economy are all important. But the way to stop this current crisis is to identify the shooters and convict them.
"There are," Conley says, "some people who simply belong in jail."