By Irene Rotondo
masslive.com
BOSTON — In a public safety milestone, Boston slashed its 2024 homicide rate to 24 killings, positioning itself as one of the safest major cities in the nation, according to officials.
There were 37 homicides in the city in 2023, 40 each in 2022 and 2021 and 56 in 2020, Boston Police Department statistics showed.
“In the entire time that I’ve been a police officer … the city has never been safer, period, when it comes to crime and particularly violent crime,” Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said during a Friday afternoon press conference at Boston Police Headquarters.
Cox added the 24 homicides in 2024 “appears to be the lowest since 1957,” and is “by far the lowest … since the data began tracking reliably in 2007.”
In addition to the 33% decline in homicides citywide since 2023, gunfire incidents have decreased by 14%. Violent crime overall dropped by 2%, said Cox. And arrests have been made in over 50% of homicide cases, he said.
“This is about saving lives, and that is maybe the most important investment of all,” Mayor Michelle Wu said during the press conference.
And while not all crime rates dropped as significantly — such as aggravated assaults and shoplifting, each of which respectively rose by 3% and 30% over the year — the officials emphasized collaboration.
“Today is not a victory lap, but a report out and a reflection of the type of results we see when we all understand communities’ collective responsibility,” she said.
The officials attributed the advancements in public safety to partnerships across leadership, including the city’s police recruitment and retention, community-coordinated efforts with city and local organizations and improved communication within departments on crime statistics.
Boston crime reduction efforts
Wu outlined several public safety efforts in the city since April 2022, when Boston conducted a national, expert-led violence reduction workshop with city department officials, the district attorney’s office and multiple community partners.
The workshop lasted several days as a “dedicated focus to bring everyone in the violence prevention space together,” Wu said. At its conclusion, a goal was set to drive down homicide rates by 20% over the next three years.
“We, of course, met that goal within the next year and have surpassed it again year after year,” Wu said.
There has been a now “regular focus” of looking at crime data, Wu said, through weekly incident review meetings led by Issac Yablo, senior mayoral advisor for Community Safety. This has been paramount in bringing down crime rates, Wu said.
“We all come together and talk about what happened, how we can do better, and how our intervention strategy should be shaped and crafted based on what happened,” Yablo said during the press conference.
“We don’t go into any solution-based conversation without the most up-to-date understanding of what the problems are, where they lie and who is most likely to be impacted,” he said.
The mayor and Yablo gave examples of work the community has done to support that goal. This included clarity across city departments and within its community partnerships, especially in safety programs for young people and adjustments to the police academy.
More than 10,000 young people in the city held a paid summer job this year after a guarantee of jobs for all Boston Public School students, Wu said. She mentioned expanded programs geared toward youth like the return of weekly safety meetings and community-based activities at multiple times of the day.
Wu also noted the Boston Police Academy and how it’s “had the largest academy classes that Boston has seen over the last several years in a row.” The mayor said it was a sign of the investments made toward improved officer wellness, negotiated contracts and the city creating a “lifestyle that is sustainable” for officers.
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‘Murder Triangle’ a ‘stereotype’
The Boston officials rejected the notion that homicides are concentrated in the so-called “murder triangle,” or a select few city neighborhoods that are said to have higher crime rates, calling it a “stereotype.”
The term “murder triangle” for the neighborhoods of Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, Hyde Park and the South End was coined earlier this month by the Rev. Kevin Peterson during an interview with Boston 25.
Peterson is a Boston activist and founder of the New Democracy Coalition, a nonprofit focused on civic life and democracy through public participation and engagement.
“As the murder rate goes down, we still find a disproportionate amount of murders located in what we call the ‘murder triangle,’” Peterson told the outlet on Dec. 6 .
“I’ve lived in two of those areas,” Cox said during the press conference, “and I’ve never called it that.”
“That being said, traditionally … areas where [there’s] probably the most poverty or underlying issues, you probably have some correlation with some of the violence,” Cox continued.
“But, I think it’s pretty remarkable … [that] the number of homicides we’ve had in the city up to this point is so tremendously lower than any other time,” he said.
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Peterson did not cite data on the specific homicide rates for the neighborhoods he described but told Boston 25 he hopes to see the “murder rate plummet in the ‘triangle’ just as it has in more affluent, white neighborhoods.”
And while Boston officials gave crime statistics for the city as a whole on Friday, rather than neighborhood-by-neighborhood numbers, they were quick to strike down assigning a name like “murder triangle” to that part of the city.
“Residents don’t refer to it as the ‘murder triangle,’ nor should they … Dorchester, Roxbury [and] Mattapan produce much more positive than they do negative,” Yablo said.
Wu shared similar sentiments and asked the media to help “push back against stereotypes that diminish the scale and effort of residents … making their neighborhoods livable and beautiful and safe and welcoming.”
“We know that breaking these cycles of violence and trauma and poverty is really important, and that takes all of us, but it also takes all of us recognizing the full scale of good that is happening,” Wu said.
Challenges and looking ahead
While the low crime rate statistics are an achievement for Boston, the issue of how to sustain the low homicide rates will continue to be a challenge — especially in the summer months, when violence tends to spike.
“In January, we’ll start all over again trying to get to zero,” said Cox. But with the recent statistics, he was confident in his police department continuing to “work hard” and in the ability of the city’s current leadership to continue “being as efficient as possible,” he said.
And while Yablo said planning starts now for crimes in the summer months, Wu noted there is no “blanket approach to everything.” Each homicide case “requires a different type of strategy” in cases anywhere from gang-related activity, to young people being involved or for domestic violence, Wu said.
“Having specific strategies and knowing within that number what the driving causes are, even in specific case-by-case situations, is really important to trying to continue dragging [the homicide rate] down further,” Wu said.
The mayor called the move to reduce homicide rates in the city an “all-hands-on-deck effort” and “the most important investment” to stop the systemic cycle of violence.
“When we do well at keeping violent crime down, we do well at everything else,” Wu said.
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