Street crime is a job for police
THIS WEEK, Governor Patrick called for adults to step in and take more responsibility for other people's children, in his words, to "start acting as though that unfamiliar kid is your own kid."
Reading his remarks reminded me of my own attempt to do just that a year or two ago.
Walking along Bunker Hill Street in Charlestown, I came across two groups of teenagers, maybe eight or nine in total. As the rest watched, a taller kid pounded on a shorter one.
"What's going on here?" I demanded. No one said a thing.
I told the first group to walk up the street, the other to go the opposite way. They hesitated, then headed off, but slowly, in sullen silence. A minute or two later, I saw the group that included the bigger of the combatants circling back. Spotting me, one of them pointed -- and directed a profane comment my way.
These were girls, in their early to mid-teens, I'd guess. And yet, an adult male barely commanded enough authority to break up their fight.
Would I have done the same if it had been a group of high school guys ?
I'd like to say yes, but frankly, I don't know.
On the campaign trail, Patrick often spoke of growing up in a neighborhood where "if you messed up down the street in front of Mrs. Jones, she would, as we used to say, go upside your head, as if you were hers. And then she'd call home, so you'd get it twice."
Like the governor, I grew up in a time when adults who weren't your parents really did have that authority, at least in the small towns where I lived. When they spoke, you listened. You knew that if you didn't, they'd have no compunction in phoning your folks, and you'd be called to account when you got home.
I wish it were that way still, but an awful lot has changed since then. When it comes to speaking to unknown and unruly teenagers, you think twice before getting involved. Certainly we're all familiar with this situation. You're riding a bus or the T and several young men come in and start a loud, curse-laden back-and-forth, making everyone uncomfortable.
You'd like to say something, but most times you don't, because you just don't know what you might be getting into. Could they have a knife? A gun? Is saying something worth risking a physical encounter?
The answer is usually no. So you bury yourself in your book or your paper and try to ignore them. You don't feel good about it, certainly, but discretion generally seems the better part of valor.
The frustrating thing is that no one seems to know how best to combat youth unruliness or violence.
Still, a more visible police presence is surely part of it. It's remarkable what an effect that can have.
Several mornings a week my wife and I walk by a corner where high-school kids congregate, an area crime statistics show as a trouble spot. In the last year or so, the police have stationed a cruiser there before school.
Many mornings, the officer is simply sitting in the car, and not out engaging with the young people, so it doesn't really feel like community policing, at least not as I understand the concept. Yet the mere presence of an officer does make the area feel supervised and thus safer. So I think Police Commissioner Edward Davis is exactly right in trying to put more police out on the street, walking beats.
And I find it hard to imagine why the mayor or the governor would show any hesitation about having the State Police help in Boston's high-crime neighborhoods. But they both have. Yesterday I asked Mayor Menino why he opposed it.
"First of all, you have different unions here," he replied.
Our city is suffering a killing spree, and police union resistance really suffices as a reason? Good Lord.
Meanwhile, citing federal data from 2000, Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, said Boston ranked third in percentage of full-time officers assigned to administrative tasks, and last in terms of full-time officers assigned to the field.
"We have people who are uniformed officers behind desks when they could be out on the street if they were replaced by lower-paid civilians," notes Tyler.
There's no single solution to our problems. But any of that would be a start.
Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com. 