GIVEN THE understandable calls for tough policing to combat youth violence, it’s refreshing to see that city officials understand that providing alternatives to gang membership for young people can be as effective over the long term as rounding up gang members.
Partnerships Advancing Communities Together, or Boston PACT, is a new joint project between city, state, and federal authorities. Boston PACT will seek out between 200 and 300 “impact players’’ in Boston — that is, violent offenders who likely played a role in the shootings that have plagued the city — and, rather than ostracize them or aggressively monitor them, will steer social services to them and their families. This could include sending a troubled teen’s younger brother to camp for the summer to keep him out of the city during the more dangerous months, or helping a threatened gang member relocate to a safer neighborhood.
Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis points out that his force will still be arresting gang members who commit crimes — and rightfully so. But Boston PACT deserves credit for taking a nuanced and politically inexpedient view: Gang members, even dangerous ones, are human beings, not simply criminals, and their behavior is motivated in part by a lack of opportunity. This is a more complicated, involved narrative than the “arrest them all and let the courts sort it out’’ philosophy that so often governs anti-crime efforts in America. It’s also more effective.
