Boston has had only three murders this year. What is it doing right?

Some of the crime statistics coming out of Boston lately have been almost hard to believe. 

Last year saw a historic low in shootings, with only 37 people killed – compared with 200 or more in similar-size cities such as Detroit; Memphis, Tennessee; and Washington. Remarkably, this year is even better. Homicides are down 82%, according to the Boston Police Department – the biggest drop of any major city in the United States. Shooting incidents are down 44%. 

As of May, only three people have been murdered in Boston this year.

Yet only 31% of Bostonians believe the police treat everyone equally regardless of race, according to a 2021 WBUR poll. Among Black respondents, that number was 17%.

Boston is at once a prime example of what is going right in policing and of how much remains to be done. The city has been a pioneer since the 1990s in policing strategies that embrace communities as partners and collaborators. Those are now paying off, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox has said. 

Yet past missteps are hard to erase, and trust is only built through sustained success, achieved together. It doesn’t come overnight, but with commitment over time. Now, there are signs that trust is finding a new foothold. While watchdog groups say much work lies ahead, they acknowledge an openness to more voices and new thinking at the Boston Police Department, which offers the hope of more progress to come.   

“Those memories of police brutality, that’s passed down from generation to generation,” says Monalisa Smith, president and founder of Mothers for Justice & Equality. “Those realities are still there for our young people, especially our young men.”

That means the “unflinching trust in the police might not be there,” she says. “But in some ways, it feels like we can finally have a seat at the table.”

When things began to change

Crime in Boston has been trending downward for years since its peak in the 1980s and ’90s. Longtime residents point to the Charles Stuart case in 1989 as the low point in trust between the community and the police force. Mr. Stuart murdered his wife and pinned the blame on a fictitious Black gunman, leading to two mistaken arrests. The explosion in crime afterward led to Boston’s investment in youth and programs connected to community needs. 

Today’s drop in crime likely has many factors, including a higher-than-average homicide solve rate and an increase in anonymous tips. But these also point to the importance of the community ties built up in recent decades.  

“We’ve been practicing community policing for a long time,” Mr. Cox told The Boston Globe. “I think we’re receiving the benefit of actually establishing a true partnership with the public like we had before, and this is the fruits of that relationship.”

Mr. Cox declined a Monitor interview request. The BPD communications department did not respond to multiple requests, in person and by phone and email, for a statement.

Former Boston Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who was famous – and infamous – for his “broken windows” strategy, once described community policing as getting out of the patrol car and walking the community streets, getting to know people’s names. Most importantly, it’s about forging partnerships with residents. 

“It really comes down to dialogue. That’s the key,” says Jack McDevitt, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. “You want to include the community in the decisions about how they are policed. You can give them feedback and really include them as an actual partner in your strategies.

“We learned in Boston a long time ago that the police can’t solve the problem of violence by themselves. They need the community as a partner.”

Boston’s biggest success

Ms. Smith of Mothers for Justice & Equality sees signs of progress in these areas.

The city has made great strides “around preventing and getting our youth off the streets,” she says. “It’s the community-based models that are doing better with educating our children. There are many more resources being put there.”

The greatest success has been YouthConnect, a partnership between BPD and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston. The program places licensed social workers in police stations to address the underlying causes of juvenile delinquency and, hopefully, prevent crime before it starts. 

YouthConnect’s approach is unique, compared with other social work models integrated within police departments. The duty of the YouthConnect social worker is to address the needs of the entire family, not just of the youth at risk. 

Last year, YouthConnect made more than 2,500 referrals to other service providers. Those could be anything from connecting a family member to a job opportunity to helping struggling students engage with summer camp or after-school learning programs. 

Nearly 85% of youth say yes to services when YouthConnect makes its calls to families, and the numbers of both YouthConnect referrals and “yes” responses have increased over time, showing mounting trust and effectiveness.

“Our social workers are working out of the clubs and building trusting relationships because people see them as who they are, and not just as social workers,” says Robert Lewis, president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston. “That’s what works and why I think the number of referrals has increased. ... A lot of it has to do with trust.”

Since YouthConnect began in 1996, the program has doubled its staff and established a citywide presence in special police units.

YouthConnect’s success demonstrates real creativity and institutional change from the BPD. 

“When thinking about community policing, I like to think of it as building partnerships with the community to solve pretty complex problems,” says Kevan Barton, director of YouthConnect. 

Others go further, noting the BPD’s willingness to forge true partnerships.

“Community policing works best when we’re peers, when there isn’t one partner dominant over the other partner,” says Mark Scott, director of the Division of Violence Prevention at the Boston Public Health Commission. “What Boston has built over the last few decades is greater organization, greater power with authority among the community, and therefore better partnership with the police.”

Not everything has worked

Yet not all community policing efforts have met with such success. 

Below the offices of the Mothers for Justice & Equality in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston lies the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT), which was created in 2021 to investigate claims of police misconduct.

However, it has taken up just six of 148 claims filed. In those instances, OPAT recommended suspensions in three cases, termination in one, training in three, and oral reprimands in two. However, the office’s website does not provide details on the disciplinary actions taken by the police in these cases.

Mel Hoyt, director of youth development at Mothers for Justice & Equality, says the program has not taken youth concerns seriously yet. 

“They’ve come to talk to us. But not much has come from it in terms of any acknowledgment or follow-ups,” she says. “There’s not much accountability, even though this unit was created for that purpose.”

The contrast between OPAT and YouthConnect shows the task ahead.

“Building trust takes time,” says Mr. Barton. “It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s really a two-way street built on mutual respect.”