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Impact Building on all of the ongoing law enforcement and intervention initiatives, the two Cease Fire interventions had a dramatic impact on Boston’s youth homicide rate. In the twelve months following the first forum with the Vamp Hill Kings in May 1996, the number of youth homicides by firearms, and all youth homicides, fell to pre-crack-era levels. (See graph.) Just as important, the number of killings—and of all violent crimes—has remained low since then.  Stopping young people from killing each other was the key achievement of the broad collaborative effort that emerged from tentative beginnings on the front lines in 1992 and culminated in Operation Cease Fire in 1996. In a real sense, this was only the beginning—the problems of drugs, guns, and gangs, as well as the social conditions that support them, remain. But it was the essential step that created space and energy for tackling those complex underlying issues. At the same time, the reduction in violence put the seal of success on the coordinated "prevention, intervention, and enforcement" approach that had produced it—an approach officially named by the BPD in 1996: The Boston Strategy to Prevent Youth Violence. Gangs, Police, and the Community Through the combination of law-enforcement crackdowns and intervention programs, the partners participating in and backing Operating Cease Fire presented gang members with a clearly defined choice—to stop the violence or risk going to prison—and also with some support for choosing correctly. Beyond that, some other choices began to open up. There was "a sea change," observed Ray Hammond of the discussion groups in his church. "I think people made conscious decisions to put weapons away, tell their friends to put weapons away, try to negotiate and resolve problems rather than play war games. They were starting to think about the future and think about what was going to happen to their young brothers and sisters." Thinking about the future meant taking advantage of the help being offered, reconnecting with parents and community, taking responsibility for children and for relationships with wives or girlfriends. It could also mean going to school, taking on a career-track job, or becoming a mentor to younger at-risk kids. Above all, it meant beginning to move away from gang life and life on the street. "Basically," said a former gang member, "I had to choose my friends or my future, and I chose my future." Most fundamentally, such choices saved the community and all the adults working with gang-involved youth from the terrible grief of mourning murdered children. They also brought an end to the deadly gang warfare that had made some neighborhoods into a war zone, opening the way to a revival of neighborhood life. "You can go into those communities now and see grandmothers walking the streets and in the parks that the gangs controlled," said Streetworker Tracy Litthcut. "I can see now, six-, seven-, eight-year-olds in the park playing again, people out on the streets, in their backyards, having cook-outs, [whereas before] they were nervous about a stray bullet hitting them or their family." In addition, noted Litthcut, adults in the community, who were once too intimidated to leave their homes, became more of a presence in kids’ lives. Those kinds of changes both reflect the degree to which Boston’s neighborhoods have become safer and help to ensure that they will remain safe. |
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Finally, the success achieved in dealing with the problem of youth homicide—and the way in which it was achieved—permanently changed the jobs of police and probation officers and ushered in a new era of police-community relations. For example, in the years after 1996, when Operation Cease Fire removed the most violent gang members from the streets, the character of Operation Night Light evolved from confrontational to something much more supportive. Probation officer Stewart described, for example, "sitting with the kid on his porch waiting for Domino’s to show up; or sitting with the kid rocking his baby, or changing his baby’s diaper; or just sitting with the mother around the table trying to help her re-institute parental control; or taking the kid for a ride for a hamburger because the mother’s boyfriend beats him up." As police and probation officers began building relationships with young probationers, the program became a model of human connection, as well as law enforcement. It has spread beyond Dorchester to five other court districts, placing fifty police officers and fifty probation officers out on the streets, seven nights a week. The probation officers’ union has instituted new rules to provide for nighttime work. "Anyone hired as a probation officer after March 1, 1999 is bound to spend at least 20 percent of the work week in the community, in non-traditional hours," noted Dorchester chief probation officer Bernie Fitzgerald. "That’s a sea change for us." |
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Similarly, police work in Boston has come to be as much about prevention and intervention as about law enforcement. Among other things, that shift in emphasis has placed licensed social workers in precinct stations, where they have become part of the resources police can use in dealing with kids in trouble. It has also made the BPD a leading player in finding jobs for kids at risk, in developing funding for social services, and in creating long-term strategies for seemingly intractable problems such as truancy. "Early on," said YVSF officer Robert Merner, "my partner and I felt that the majority of these kids needed to go to jail. And the clergy —Gene Rivers, Ray Hammond, Jeff Brown—felt that most of the lambs could be saved. We’re to the point now in this city, where I’ll receive a call from one of the clergy and he’ll be saying, ‘You know, Bob, this kid has to go to jail.’ And I’m talking about getting him into a program— what can we do for him?’" As recently as 1990, when the BPD acted and was perceived more like "an occupying force" in minority communities, such a role reversal would have been unthinkable. But, said Eugene Rivers, "We have been greatly educated by the law enforcement community, and most of the thoughtful members of the police department would agree that the faith community has played a constructive role in encouraging them to look at the importance of employment, jobs, and recreational and cultural enrichment. So it has been a mutually beneficial partnership that’s evolved. It’s not a neat love story, but it’s a real story. And Boston is a greater city as a result." |
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The changes in perception that these statements reflect made possible a coordinated approach to gang violence. The success of that approach effectively institutionalized the changes. It has also laid the foundation for continuing collaboration on a broad range of underlying problems, of which gang violence was the most shocking symptom. Collaboration and Hope For the adults working on the front lines with young people at risk for gang involvement and violence, the success of Operation Cease Fire brought a welcome opportunity to expand upon what Harvard researcher David Kennedy has called, "a small, but critically important, piece of shared moral territory"—the desire to keep kids alive.[4] Building from that base, they have worked to preserve and expand key alliances and to sustain momentum while shifting emphasis toward longer term violence prevention and intervention programs. Police, probation, Streetworkers, and clergy have all continued to maintain a presence on the streets, keeping lines of communication open—among themselves and with gang members—in order to head off violence if possible, and to contain it when it occurs. As a result, while there have been gang-related shootings and homicides since 1996, there have not been the rounds of retaliatory violence that once would have been inevitable. |
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The Cease Fire partners have also found many new avenues for cooperation as the focus has shifted from law enforcement to intervention. U.S. Attorney Don Stern recalled that, at a meeting with the YVSF to assess the impact of the action against the Intervale Posse, a Streetworker asked him if he was willing to help find jobs for gang members who wanted to change. Stern decided he was, and the seed for the Boston Jobs Project was planted. Stern lined up the police commissioner, the DA, and the state attorney general to lend their credibility and contribute resources; they formed an alliance with the Private Industry Council, the Boston School Committee, social service agencies, and community groups. "Initially it was almost a cut-and-paste way to try to send a message that we’re not just in the business of prosecuting and locking people up," said Stern. "It was built on the premise that if the Streetworkers, the probation officers, the cops could identify some hard-core offenders who were appropriate for prosecution, these same people might also help identify people who were looking for an alternative, people who were prepared to make a change. And that we, as a law enforcement community, had some I’d almost say moral obligation to play our part in trying to help them." Another intervention initiative from the law enforcement community is the Fatherhood Program: a weekly discussion group for probationers who have children, aimed at supporting them in learning to be good fathers. This 12-week program originated in the probation office of the Dedham District Court as a collaboration between probation officers and clergy. Participants share stories and discuss the responsibilities of fatherhood, such as providing affection and "gentle guidance," as well as financial support. They can have their probation time reduced for perfect, on-time attendance. In the view of Bernie Fitzgerald, chief of probation for the Dorchester District Court and an active participant, it is the most promising, important probation work of all, because it holds the promise of breaking the pattern of violence learned by children at home, either by experience or observation. "Some of these are tough, tough guys," said Fitzgerald. "And to have 12 or 15 or 18 guys sit around and talk about their children and how much they love their children, and how they want to do the right thing by their children, and how they want to be a proud example for their children, and they want to take responsibility, and how much they want to learn about doing that—it’s absolutely eye-opening. And it’s rejuvenating for somebody like me who’s been around for 28 years. It gives me new hope that things can change." Such programs, offering alternatives to gang-involved youth and supporting those who want to change, have been a natural outgrowth of the work with established, extremely violent gangs. To a great extent, however, attention has now shifted to a younger generation of at-risk youth and to intervening earlier in their lives, if possible before they get into a settled pattern of crime and violence. For example, under a U.S. Justice Department Comprehensive Communities Grant, a city-wide coalition of agencies created the Youth Service Providers Network (YSPN). Beginning in the summer of 1996, YSPN began placing full-time social workers in police precinct houses, to connect kids in trouble and their families to available social services. The Department of Probation and the TenPoint Coalition have expanded upon the concept of Night Light with home visits to first-time offenders. Teams of probation officers and clergy talk to kids and their parents about the potential consequences of crime and violence and the resources available to support different choices. The YVSF and its partners have taken the Cease Fire format into schools, to present kids who seem to be moving toward gang involvement with a clear message: adults are watching you and are ready to act decisively if you use violence. Another school-focused initiative, sponsored by Ralph Martin, the Suffolk County District Attorney, are Juvenile Justice Roundtables—multi-agency discussion groups convened to talk about kids and issues that are causing concern in high schools. In 1998, an expanded group of partners joined the Boston School Department in mounting a major initiative to improve school attendance, which looked beyond apprehending truants to helping them and their families address some of the underlying problems keeping them out of school. In short, one of the most significant impacts of the success achieved with the problem of youth homicide is a sense of momentum behind efforts to find solutions to what once seemed insoluble urban problems. This hope rests on people’s demonstrated willingness to change and on the new ways of thinking and working that have emerged as a result—on key alliances, and on a broad commitment to collaboration. It also rests on the shared belief that Boston has developed and demonstrated an effective approach for tackling such problems. That approach is The Boston Strategy.
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