In the 1990s, we introduced Boston's community policing strategy. We reversed the tide of violent crime that threatened our city, and we established a national model for preventing and fighting crime.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Our people went out every single night trying to stop crime before it happened, trying to take people off the street that they believed were involved in crime. That made us a very aggressive, proactive police department.
In fact, even the perception of a resurgence in crime can be enough to paralyze business momentum and destroy the sense of security that a vibrant and progressive city requires.
Fighting crime requires a partnership between the police and the community. And we all know that this partnership has been tested in Chicago. It is a problem that has festered in this city for decades.
As a city, we have to face the reality that New York's minority communities experience a disproportionate share of violent crime.
Violent crime rates fell steadily from 1993 to 2002, and this nearly coincides with the establishment of the community policing program known as the COPS program under the Clinton administration.
We can't just rail against crime. We must speak of the root problems - devastating family breakup, an insidious culture of violence that cheapens human life, skyrocketing prisoner recidivism rates that rob our communities of husbands and fathers - and recognize that there is a societal role in rehabilitation and restoration.
Community-based policing has now come to mean everything. It's a slogan. It has come to mean so many different things that people who endorse it, such as the Congress of the United States, do not know what they are talking about.
There's an ugly civil war side to revolutionary Boston that we don't often talk about and a lot of thuggish, vigilante behavior by groups like the Sons of Liberty.
If we were really tough on crime, we'd do more to stop it from happening in the first place.
Police reform is working, and crime is falling.
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