Wake-up call

As citywide crime levels drop, some of Boston's safest neighborhoods may be feeling too secure for their own good

by Sarah McNaught

As far as Karen O'Connell is concerned, it's time for the security grates to come down. The director of Hyde Park Main Streets thinks the metal grids that protect store windows are ugly and undermine the neighborhood's sense of warmth and community. And on June 31, Main Streets, a national program aimed at revitalizing downtown neighborhoods, will launch a $200,000 initiative to remove the grates from the windows.

"Things are good right now," O'Connell says. "Business owners aren't complaining about crime, and I've heard of no problems in the rest of the neighborhood."

But maybe she hasn't been listening closely enough. At a time when serious crime in Boston has decreased for the fourth year in a row, according to statistics released by the Boston Police Department on May 29, the section of the city known as Area E -- West Roxbury, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, and Hyde Park -- has seen serious crime increase 27 percent since last year. No other part of the city recorded an increase.

According to crime statistics for the first four months of 1999, the city as a whole has seen homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and vehicle theft drop three percent from the same period last year. From January to April, 364 fewer incidents occurred than in the first four months of 1998.

But Roslindale and West Roxbury recorded 209 more crimes than in the same period last year, a 54 percent increase. Hyde Park had 137 more crimes, or a 32 percent rise -- and, unlike any other area of the city, it has suffered increases in every category of serious crime except homicide (zero incidents) and rape (five incidents). Jamaica Plain has seen 12 more crimes, which is a two percent increase from last year.

These neighborhoods are still considered among the safest in the city: of Boston's five police districts, Area E registered the second-lowest crime totals, with 1250 incidents between January and April. Roslindale, West Roxbury, Hyde Park, and Jamaica Plain, like the rest of Boston, benefited greatly from the community-policing strategies that police credit with bringing down citywide crime rates since the early '90s. Residents embraced neighborhood crime-watch programs, and local police put special emphasis on combating the types of minor but highly visible crime -- loitering and vandalism, for example -- that can make city dwellers feel unsafe.

Most citizens give officials high marks for those efforts. Elaine Daly, who has lived on the West Roxbury/Roslindale border for more than 25 years, says she sees cops on bicycles talking to kids and checking out parked cars. She says the city has readily answered pleas for additional street lights and routine police patrols in local housing projects and public parks.

"It truly is a bedroom community with a big-city location but a small-town feel," says the 52-year-old grandmother. "Police are visible and crime really isn't."

"There has been a true sense of safety here for the past five years," agrees Captain William Parlon of the Area E police station. But, ironically, that very sense of safety may be giving criminals an opening. Some residents and local officials believe the continuing decrease in crime has left citizens complacent, making them easy prey for such crimes as car thefts, assaults, and home invasions.

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Erin Doyle thinks she does her part to stop crime. Whenever the West Roxbury resident sees something suspicious, like a stranger peering into cars or lurking around schoolyards, she phones the police.

But she isn't always so vigilant when it comes to her daily habits. On a humid Tuesday afternoon, Doyle pulls into the parking lot of a tanning salon on Washington Street in West Roxbury. The 32-year-old substitute teacher has 45 minutes to get her daily dose of rays, clean up, and pick up her daughter at day care. She hops out of her 1990 Honda Prelude armed with a bottle of suntan lotion, eye goggles, and her portable CD player. "I definitely don't have enough hands," she says as she removes a five-dollar bill from her wallet, tosses the purse back onto the driver's seat, and closes the door.

Leaving valuables visible in a car makes it a target for thieves, and Roslindale and West Roxbury saw 36 more auto thefts and attempted auto thefts in the past four months than in the same period last year. That adds up to 114 -- nearly a car a day. And Toyotas and Hondas are the vehicles of choice for car thieves in that part of town, according to Christopher Hayes, director of the Boston Police Department's Crime Watch program.

"We can only teach people how to be safe by coming to their homes, listening to their concerns, and tailoring a crime-watch program to suit that particular neighborhood's needs," says Hayes, who has helped establish more than 1000 neighborhood crime-watch programs around Boston over the past 14 years. "But it is up to the people themselves to utilize the safety methods we teach them. There has been some slippage in some areas, particularly car thefts."

"I am concerned that too much complacency will lead to more-severe crimes down the road," says City Councilor Dan Conley, a Hyde Park native who has represented the neighborhood since 1993. But Conley, who served as an assistant district attorney for nine years before being elected to the city council, sees another problem on the horizon: "We also must look at the fact that we are about to experience a boom in the population of young men between the ages of 15 and 25, and statistics show that that exact age and gender group commits the most crimes."

Mayor Thomas Menino, who lives in Hyde Park and represented it as a city councilor before he became mayor, echoes Conley's concerns. "This is no time to become complacent. We must work harder to decrease all crimes in all parts of the city," says Menino. "We must stay ahead of issues . . . especially now, as we will begin to see an expanding adolescent population."

David Viera believes he may already be seeing the effects of this demographic trend. The 49-year-old Hyde Park realtor, who belongs to several community organizations, says that he and his neighbors feel very safe in the neighborhood where he has lived for more than 30 years. But, he says, he has noticed kids becoming a problem.

"For instance, I am starting to notice large groups of rowdy kids hanging around areas like Cleary Square who have little respect for the residents who live and shop in that neighborhood," says Viera, who himself was verbally harassed by a youth during a recent trip to the local post office. "People need to look around and be aware of changes. It's an all-or-nothing situation. If every single person doesn't do their part, then no one will do their part."

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Many residents have yet to notice the increase in crime, but politicians and police are taking steps to stop the problem before it becomes too big to ignore. In fact, making people aware of the increase in crime is the first step toward reversing it, says City Councilor Maura Hennigan, who represents West Roxbury and sections of Jamaica Plain.

"We've always had such a safe community that we've been more focused on neighborhood issues" such as noise, traffic, and business development, says Hennigan. "We realize that people don't know crime has increased, but we are working with local newspapers to try and get the word out." For example, she says, papers began offering safety tips to readers in response to a rash of break-ins at the beginning of the year.

In addition, police are continuing the Car Safe program, a four-year-old campaign in which police officers leave mock tickets on the windshields of cars that appear to be easy targets for criminals. On the warnings, officers list the driver's mistakes, whether it's leaving valuables in view or failing to lock the doors.

"We have tried everything to get people to be more responsible, but people have a naive sense of security," says Captain Parlon. Police are attacking the problem from their end, too, he adds: "I've put out more patrol cars, and just last night [June 13] we made four arrests related to the car thefts. That is going to make a big difference."

Christopher Hayes is also trying to revive the neighborhoods' crime-watch programs, some of which he says have lapsed because so many people have moved in and out of certain areas of Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, and Hyde Park recently. Officers are contacting local crime-watch members who have been out of touch and have teamed up with groups such as Healthy Roslindale to contact residents about neighborhood meetings.

"If we see a slippage in certain areas, we revisit them and find out what we can do to help," says Hayes. "We have been known to go to court with victims, assist them with victim-impact statements, and lend a hand getting the crime-watch word out in the victims' neighborhood."

Dan Conley, for his part, has been fighting for additional officers to be put in areas where crime is on the rise. "Area E is the largest geographic area in Boston and therefore requires more cops," says the city councilor. "Although the number of officers has increased from 1800 in 1993 to 2300 this year, we need more to effectively implement community-policing initiatives."

It's a matter of keeping the pressure on, concerned residents agree. "This city is big on trends. Crime is down, the dropout rate is down, teen pregnancy is down, whatever it may be," says Elaine Daly. "Anything that makes the city look good is publicized, and any problems are often kept hush-hush. I just hope people who live in this part of the city can see beyond that and recognize a growing problem before it becomes too big to deal with."

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.