One tragic family tree

JUST THREE years ago, some of the sharpest minds in the Boston Police Department were crafting a unique data base that cross -referenced the names of people arrested or interrogated in the violent Grove Hall neighborhood with files from state human service agencies. The goal was to identify families prone to multi generational dysfunction or criminal behavior and then to intervene with targeted social services.

Liquarry Jefferson, the 8-year-old boy who was shot to death Sunday in his Roxbury apartment, was part of one extended family that police were trying to reach in Grove Hall. Police say that the boy was mistakenly shot by his 7-year-old cousin, who was playing with an unregistered, unsecured handgun.

It becomes easier to understand how this tragedy occurred by looking back at the branches of the family tree in the Grove Hall pilot project. Police focused on 36 related individuals ages 6 to 59. Of the 36, 26 had been arrested and 20 incarcerated. Twelve of the arrests resulted in firearms charges. Only two of the seven children in the family regularly attended school. And even with intensive services, some members of the family remained beyond reach.

The Grove Hall project derailed when a sharp rise in homicides and nonfatal shootings from 2004 to 2006 focused police attention elsewhere. Although the project isn't flawless, Boston police need to resuscitate it and bring it to scale. Families exhibiting similar levels of dysfunction are spread across the city. Aggressive intervention won't save every child, but it could disrupt the cycle that leads inexorably to arrest and incarceration. Police Commissioner Edward Davis said in March that he would set and publicize specific goals for the department, including crime reduction targets. Part of that pledge should be to restore the project that withered during the term of his predecessor.

Part of the challenge of the Grove Hall project was to gain the cooperation of state human services agencies. Harry Spence, the former commissioner of the Department of Social Services, worried that sharing information with police might run afoul of privacy laws. But there is no legal barrier to the police supplying information to social workers, who could then design the needed interventions. The state Department of Mental Health must also step up. Eight of the 36 members in the Grove Hall study suffered diagnosable mental illnesses, but only one had received services from the state Mental Health Department.

State human services chief JudyAnn Bigby has criticized the "silo" approach to social services that undermines efforts to provide integrated services, including health initiatives, child protection, and institutional care. The Grove Hall project, if properly implemented, could tie it all together.