Robert Reich on Crime

Building the Commonwealth: Keeping Our Families Safe from Crime

By Robert B. Reich
Codman Square Health Center
July 18, 2002

Just over two weeks ago, a little girl was gunned down in Boston. "I don't see a park," her mother said, as she stood in the park where her 10-year-old daughter received a fatal shot to her head. "I see a cemetery. The only thing that is missing here is the tombstones. This is a brand new cemetery."

The tragedy of Trina Persad's death has shocked us all. No parent should have to worry about their 10-year-old being shot and killed on a playground. No senior should have to fear for their lives while sitting on their front porch.

But the sad truth is that, in many neighborhoods in our Commonwealth, they do have to worry. Until last year, Boston was a success story for its approach in fighting against crime, reducing gang violence, and bringing people back to the city. It was a community-wide approach that involved neighborhood activists, a courageous group of clergy, the Mayor, the Police Commissioner, the District Attorney and the Probation Department, and the Attorney General. They forged a coordinated, community-level crime control program that drastically reduced crime and made neighborhoods and the whole city safer. Boston was a place we could be proud of.

We cannot let Trina's death mark the reversal of hope and progress. Instead, it should shock us into a renewed commitment. We cannot relax our vigilance. We cannot allow criminals to set the agenda for our Commonwealth.

Trina Persad's death was chilling because we were so used to winning this war. But the warnings of the experts were out there: The convicted criminals of 10 years ago are coming back onto the streets. We may not be able to change the demographics, but we must not allow them to be excuses.

Keep Guns Out of the Hands of Felons and Gang Members

Now is the time for leadership, not capitulation. But what we see on Beacon Hill is just the opposite. After legislative leaders received more than $10,000 in contributions over the past two years from the Massachusetts affiliate of the NRA, the House voted last week to weaken gun laws. They voted to make it easier for someone convicted of child rape or assault and battery to carry a concealed weapon.

A child is shot and the House of Representatives votes to make it easier for felons to carry concealed weapons and shoot again. I have said many times in this campaign--but never with more conviction--that it is time to clean up the mess on Beacon Hill.

Instead of making it easier for convicted criminals to carry weapons, we must make it as difficult as possible. The federal government has a Felon-in-Possession law which makes it a crime for a felon to have something as simple--or as dangerous--as a bullet in their pocket. I want to take that a step further in Massachusetts and say that if you are a convicted violent felon and if we find you with a gun, you will go to jail for at least five years--no questions asked, no excuses acceptable, no loopholes allowed.

We must increase penalties for weapons trafficking, and pass legislation to limit handgun sales to one per month for those who are legally permitted to buy them. And we must have enough police on the streets and enough prosecutors in the courts to catch gun criminals and send them to jail. The state has cut funding for community policing efforts as well as for District Attorneys offices across the state. That's a budget cut that could cut short innocent lives--and we must reverse it.

Direct State Efforts to Fight and Prevent Crime

The reality is that for too long, while Boston and other communities have done so much to fight crime, state government has done too little. What has been missing is the political will. The state can--and should--play a critical role in public safety.

After all, the state is the anchor for the entire criminal justice system. It runs the prisons. It builds and manages the information system that all police departments rely on. It creates the sentencing statutes. It runs the Department of Youth Service, which carries out both the parole and the corrections functions for all offenders under the age of 18. And the state, with its centralized probation staff, is in charge of the release and parole of all offenders. State government has an enormous contribution to make in keeping neighborhoods and streets safe.

We as a Commonwealth have not taken Boston's success statewide. According to the Massachusetts State Police, from 2000 to 2001, murder is up 150% and rape is up 49% in Brockton. In Lowell, aggravated assault is up 24%. In Holyoke, rape is up 64% and aggravated assault is up 25%. In Lawrence, rape is up an appalling 140%.

We have not moved the Boston model to the great old mill towns of this Commonwealth, many of which are struggling with crime. The state must become a center of action and innovation, a key organizer and a contributor, supporting and advancing the kind of community-focused crime control that Boston pioneered and which we must now revive all across Massachusetts. We must duplicate Operation Nightlight in every city in the Commonwealth and get offenders off the street.

We will not succeed overnight, but we can and must begin today--and we have great unused powers within our reach.

Our collective task is clear. Virtually every crime is committed by someone well known to the criminal justice system. Most perpetrators are on probation, or on parole, or have outstanding warrants for arrest, or are in DYS custody, or they are on juvenile probation, or have just been released from county or state corrections facilities. We know them.

Most of the time, we have a legal right to control the "conditions of their liberty." Most of the time, we have the power to specify what offenders and ex-offenders can do day and night -- and with a simple administrative hearing we can revoke probation, DYS parole or adult parole and pull them back in jail.

But let's face it: Most convicts will eventually get out of prison. 97% of Massachusetts convicts do--and 57% of the time, they are simply released with no supervision. It is unacceptable to just put them back onto the streets with nothing more than a hope that they will not commit another crime. That hope is confounded by experience: at least 44% of all convicts released from prison commit another crime in Massachusetts within their first three years in the community.

Other states like New York supervise nearly every criminal who is released from prison upon the completion of their sentence. Massachusetts should take this a step further and supervise every single prisoner who has completed their sentence.

This will require legislation and new sentencing rules that will require judges to order a minimum of six months--possibly even a year-- of supervision in addition to whatever sentence the convict receives.

Make no mistake about it -- this is nothing less than a complete reinvention of our criminal justice system. For every released offender. For at least six months, or even a year.

Focus on Community and Offenders, not Bureaucrats

We have the legal right and the legal obligation to control offender and ex-offender behavior on the street. We have failed because we are hamstrung by bureaucracy. We are organized by jurisdiction, by police department, by probation office, by parole office, by DYS, by juvenile probation and not by neighborhood.

The neighborhoods can see the truth every day on the street. That's why we should contract with small and medium-sized community groups, including faith-based organizations, in areas with rising crime to provide mentoring and drug counseling services. They know the score, and they know who to worry about. But we must also coordinate: individual neighborhoods and individual agencies accomplish much on their own, but unless there is exceptional leadership, they don't operate together.

The truth is, the system should make it easy to organize and act on a community level and to require good behavior from offenders. It should not take heroic effort to achieve the obvious.

It just takes simple, if fundamental, decisions.

First, we should start with the community. Every city and every large neighborhood needs a community crime control advisory council, a group of civic and neighborhood leaders to work with criminal justice agencies. We need to make official what has been informal. The responsibilities should be state-mandated, but mayors should lead the effort to form the councils and should take responsibility for their quality and effectiveness. The Councils should mobilize the community and inform the criminal justice agencies. They need to provide local insight and local intelligence to make law enforcement swifter, more certain, and more efficient.

Second, we need new structures. The criminal justice agencies are organized by jurisdictions that often actually impede crime control. We need new lines of reporting that link parole, DYS, and probation for juveniles and adults and organize the efforts around the same district offices in the same neighborhoods, either in the same or in linked organizations.

A Clear Choice for At-Risk Kids

We have to give kids real choices between a life of crime and real opportunity. We have to be tough on crime and its causes. We must combat the rising tide of violence in our schools, and ensure that students have a safe place to learn. In order to do that, they have to be in school. Truancy is a serious problem in our cities, and as Governor, I will commit to a Truant Officer Grant Program which gives stipends to schools with high truancy rates which develop systematic plans to reverse them.

To hold schools accountable, I will require that each district issue a monthly report on violence and truancy, breaking down the results by school. For the safety of others, violent students must be removed--but we cannot simply forget about them and write off their future. They should be given the chance to learn in alternative environments such as the Phoenix Alternative Programs in Brockton, which have proven that even the most troubled students can succeed with attention and the commitment of caring adults. And because a stable home and role models are essential to learning, we must also strengthen mentoring for youth in DYS custody.

For our youth, independence, self-confidence, and opportunity begins with a job. As Governor, I will commit that any at-risk young person who wants a summer job will have one. Mayor Menino has been a national leader in fighting for summer jobs for Boston's teenagers. The business community has stepped up the plate and hired kids. I want to do that across the state and work with businesses, non-profits, hospitals, colleges and Chambers of Commerce to give every at-risk teenager a chance to work every summer.

We should set a clear goal for Massachusetts: In every neighborhood in the Commonwealth, to make citizens safer in their homes and on their streets.

We know this is possible. Boston has proven it and will prove it again. Our task is to take it statewide, and to make it systematic, not difficult and heroic. It is really very simple.

We must turn this system around. The leadership for community-focused crime control must come from the state, and it should come personally from the Governor. It is state law and state executive activity that frames all of the action--and the inaction--of the criminal justice system. Our young people deserve better than a life of crime, and our communities deserve better than the fear of crime.

This is not a conservative issue, but in truth goes to the heart of our progressive values. As Robert Kennedy said the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated: "The fight against crime is in the last analysis the same as the fight for equal opportunity, or the battle against hunger and deprivation, or the struggle to prevent the pollution of our air and water. It is a fight to preserve that quality of community which is at the root of our greatness; a fight to preserve confidence in ourselves and our fellow citizens; a battle for the quality of our lives."

As Governor, I vow to lead us in making our neighborhoods safer, and to secure the fundamental civil right to be safe in your own homes, on your own streets and playgrounds. Let's have a Massachusetts that belongs to law-abiding families--to children like Trina Persad--and not to the criminals who shot her down.

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