[Ghostparking]

A. Grizzle has a new essay posted to Ghostparking. Here is just a taste.

Carrot and the Stick

Boston's violent crime rate in 2005 was the highest it has been in ten years. Equally as disturbing, is that many of those involved, both the victims and the perpetrators, were 24 or younger. In the early nineties Boston was held hostage by violent crime and gang activity. In response to this violence, a new system of cooperation among police, politicians, human service workers, spiritual leaders and those within the community, helped the city to combat this tide of violence with revolutionary new methods. Later to be dubbed the "Boston Miracle", this system successfully brought down the number of youths involved in gangs, as well as the homicide and violent crime rate among those 24 and under. Violent crime among the youth population in Boston is once again on the rise, thus it is necessary to examine what factors contributed to the upsurge of youth violence and how the successful tactics of the nineties could aid in combating it once again.

Between 1990 and 1995 the number of shootings within the city of Boston were recklessly out of control. David Bernstein writes "From 1990 through 1995 - the bad years, when gun violence ruled the streets of Boston - the city averaged 440 shooting victims a year (fatal and nonfatal), or 1.2 a day" (A18). A great number of those involved in these violent crimes were youths 24 and under. As Bettye Pruitt points out "with 62 homicide victims aged 24 and younger, Boston was awash in a rising tide of youth violence, part of a nationwide surge that began in the 1980's with the arrival on the streets of crack cocaine"(4). Boston's situation seemed hopeless, and many of those participating in the violence as well as those living in the areas effected by it, seemed to feel like things would never change.

Read the rest of the article here.