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Former Boston Police Superintendent Eddy Chrispin spent years dealing with people in crisis, first as a social worker, then, for nearly three decades, as a police officer. When he was honored last month at the City Council, he spoke from the perspective of both roles and pointed out what he described as a societal bias toward incarceration. “We never say there’s not enough money to spend to incarcerate somebody,” he told the gathering of elected officials and community members. “But at the same time, we always lack the means and ability to invest in young people at the early stage of their lives. “If we’re going to fix this thing that we call crime, that everybody battles with, dysfunction, whatever it is that you want to call it, we have to invest in young people. We have to invest in families, not on the back end when they, unfortunately, hurt somebody, generally, who is somebody from their communities.” Chrispin’s statement underscored what criminal justice reform advocates say is a gulf between the desire of community members for crime prevention and public officials for policing. Prevention efforts include investments in children, such as youth jobs, summer and afterschool programs and, in the past, the Boston Streetworkers program that intervened in gang conflicts and offered teens involved with crime a way out. Activists say policing deals with crimes after they’ve been committed, rather than with prevention. “We cling to this idea that when a young person goes off track, the only way to get them back is through the criminal justice system,” said Leon Smith, executive director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice. “That thinking is so entrenched, even when you show people data and research, they can’t see it.”  Former Boston Police Superintendent Eddy Chrispin addresses supporters at City Hall as at-large City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune looks on. (Yawu Miller photo) Although violent crime rates in Boston are less than half what they were 20 years ago and a far cry from the sky-high rates the city saw in the late 1980s and early ’90s, shootings today often spark calls for more policing. Following an Aug. 3 shooting on River Street in which five people were struck by bullets, one fatally, the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association got active on social media. “5 SHOT. 1 DEAD in Hyde Park. The violence is officially out of control,” the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association posted on the X social media platform, as quoted in the Boston Herald. “The fact that this incident took place less than 700 feet from a police station is alarming and should have all concerned.” “Safest city in America?” the post continued. “Something needs to change. Let’s start with BPD staffing levels.” The “safest city in America” line appears to be a dig at Mayor Michelle Wu, who last year repeated the claim while campaigning for reelection. Pushing aside the debate over whether Boston is safer than Seattle or San Jose, it’s undeniable that murders have been declining. Over the last five years, the average has been 38 murders a year. Last year it was 31. This year there have been 21 murders (22 including Stephenson King, shot and killed by Boston police officer Sean O’Malley). Despite plummeting rates of violent crime in Boston, the police budget has grown to $484 million — the second largest item in the city’s budget behind schools. And that figure doesn’t include the $100 million overtime budget. The Better Budget Alliance, a coalition of social justice organizations working in Boston, polled 700 Boston residents last year, focusing on majority Black and Latino neighborhoods in Roxbury, East Boston, the South End, Dorchester, Mattapan and Hyde Park. Their polling found that 75% of respondents wanted to see the city’s funding for policing cut. Asked about their city funding priorities, 68% of respondents cited housing as a top concern, 44% mentioned health and mental health, 40% pointed to immigrant support, 33% to help with monthly expenses, 30% to food aid, and 28% cited the environment. Faith in the institution of policing was low, with 78% of respondents saying they don’t believe increasing funding for police would make them more safe. At the same time white voters in Boston have historically expressed faith in police, Black voters have often shown support for alternatives to policing. In the year 2000, when a ballot question proposed allowing judges to divert people charged with minor drug offenses to treatment programs rather than jail, voters in the city’s predominantly Black wards voted overwhelmingly in favor — 80% in the Roxbury-based Ward 12, 77% in the Dorchester-based Ward 14 — showing the highest support for the measure in the city. The measure lost in predominantly white wards in South Boston, the Neponset section of Dorchester and West Roxbury and was defeated by voters statewide. (Of course, when opiate abuse became widespread in white communities across the state, police departments ceased making arrests for possession and other minor drug crimes.) That same racial split has often shown itself among elected officials, with Black and Latino city councilors historically echoing calls for a shifting funding from policing to prevention. “No matter how many police officers you add, if young people have no hope, if their parents are stressed, nothing will get better,” said former City Councilor Charles Yancey. “If we used a portion of the police overtime funding to support youth programs, we’d see a tremendous return on investment.” Smith, of Citizens for Juvenile Justice, says as ineffective as incarceration is at combatting addiction, it’s equally ineffective as a means of preventing crime. “You can’t arrest, prosecute and incarcerate your way out of a mental health crisis,” he said. “We have to stop looking at the criminal justice system as a fix and address problems early on.” Better Budget Alliance coalition members sought just that during this year’s city budgeting process, echoing calls from previous budget cycles to divert money from the Boston Police Department’s $100 million overtime budget to community initiatives members say would prevent crime, such as youth jobs and family support programs. As has been the case in past budget cycles, the police budget remained untouched. Funding for youth jobs was cut, although city officials said they plan to tap local corporations to restore some of the funding for jobs and other youth programming. But for now, anti-violence activists say, teens and their families lack the resources they need to stay safe. “There’s not much to offer youth right now,” said Romila Pereira, who served as a street worker before the city shuttered the violence prevention program in 2021. “We can tell them to get off the streets, but we don’t have a lot of places to send them to.”
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