The Boston Strategy > Players > Prosecution

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Donald K. Stern
US Attorney for Massachusetts

Part of what happened in Boston was the law-abiding people in the community, and the people who run the various institutions got together and said, "Enough is enough. These are our communities. We're not going to let a handful of criminals force us to stay in at night, keep us from walking the streets, make our children afraid, have us wonder whether our son or daughter is safe playing out in the front yard. We're not going to put up with it any more." I had no problems in persuading or presenting to community people, law-abiding people that in appropriate circumstances, federal prosecution with severe penalties was appropriate. They wanted it, they invited it, and they applauded it when it happened.

There has been an evolution. It's not a revolution, but an evolution. Some people have questioned why federal prosecutors are paying attention to what might be considered more localized street crime. Why are we focusing on youth gangs? What are we focusing on gangs being carried by repeat violent offenders? Why don't we do all the national and international crime? And my answer is, because we live in these communities, because we care about these communities, and if we can help in some way, we ought to play our part.

I think one of the hallmarks of the success in Boston has been a willingness on the part of everybody to step out of what might be called the traditional job description. We didn't sit around in a room and say, "We're now going to throw our job description out the window and do other things." It just happened. So you had the TenPoint Coalition, ministers stepping down from their pulpit and walking the streets, you had the police officers pairing up with the probation officers and going into homes and doing home visits. You had federal and state prosecutors attending community meetings. You had police officers getting summer jobs for kids in ways that they hadn't done before. You had a whole variety of different players in the system who were doing things, not because it was in or out of the job description, but they were doing things because the ultimate objective was to protect the safety, try to keep people out of trouble, and lock up those who continued to get into trouble.

Someone described it as a consensus that our job was to save kids. That that was really what our job ought to be. And if we kept focused on that, a lot of the other things–including some petty rivalries and turf battles that would pop up from time to time–those things would be, if not eliminated then at least brought down to a modest level so we can get on with the true business, what the public expects us to do, not to be disagreeing with each other, not to be saying, "Sorry, I don't do that." What the public expects us to do is be protecting the public safety and locking up those people who were truly violent and helping those who want to make a change.

In my view, the measure of success of a vibrant community, a safe community is not that young people stay out of trouble. If that's our measure of success, then I think that's a pretty imperfect measure of success. The measure of success is people stay out of trouble but they are productive members of society, they're giving something back, they're supporting their families, they're holding a job, they're going to school.

You've got probation officers and cops who basically came up with a new idea, and what people in leadership positions I think can do is to nurture that, rather than step on it, which can happen: "You're not following the union rules. You're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. You're not filling your paperwork out." Whatever the bureaucratic response is that people can sometimes have, people in leadership can say, you know, "It's not usual. It's not what we'd ask you to do. But it's great. So keep doing it." And that's a lot of what was happening kind of early on was this sort of identification of things that seemed to be working.

Locking SOME people up is a necessary ingredient and is part of the answer. When people commit crimes, they can expect to be prosecuted and in appropriate situations sent to prison. But the law enforcement people understood earlier than many people that offering alternatives, providing something in addition to locking people up, is key. And that's been part of the success of Boston, that it's not just the heavy hand, although the heavy hand can be appropriate in many instances. But it's providing that alternative. And part of the alternative, it seems to us, is trying to get people jobs. The alternative isn't just "Stay out of trouble."