Ed note: See the comments for a possible explanation: Maybe not an actual increase in crime, but an increase in convincing immigrants to report crime.
The latest statistics from Boston Police show a 21% increase from Jan. 1 through July 19 when compared to the same period last year. Most dramatic: The increase in burglary and attempted burglary, up 69%, to 130 incidents.
The statistics show that, compared to some other police districts in the city, East Boston remains relatively peaceful. However, most other district showed overall drops in reported crime or, at most, a slight increase.
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Comments
"Reported" Crime
By escapedfromeastie
Mon, 07/20/2009 - 9:01pm
As it has been pointed out in recent discussions, I believe a decent portion of this increase is due to the work the Eastie police have been doing to educate area Hispanics (legal or not) regarding reporting crimes (i.e. "They shouldn't be scared to report a crime.", etc.)
Regardless, hearing this news last month spurred me to finally purchase renter's insurance, which is actually very affordable.
A small number of people can
By NotWhitey
Tue, 07/21/2009 - 9:28am
A small number of people can do a large number of property crimes, so it wouldn't surprise me if the increase was real. A single junkie - new to the scene - can easily do a crime a week. Whereas they've been talking about encouraging immigrants to report crimes for years now.
Relative to population size, crime statistics are actually small numbers, so it's easy to get increases - or decreases - that don't actually "mean" anything at all. Most change from year to year is just a random walk through social pathology.
notwhitey
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/21/2009 - 9:32am
A single junkie is capable of doing 5-20 breaks a day, but 5 easy. Any more than 10 a day would draw a flooded police presence to prevent future junkie breaks.
I find this believable
By Sock_Puppet
Tue, 07/21/2009 - 9:31am
I have done work with immigrants who were stone cold terrified to speak with police for any reason.
I call BS
By NotWhitey
Tue, 07/21/2009 - 3:07pm
Reread your post and ask yourself if it makes sense, or does it just sound like propaganda. The immigrants who won't talk to the police story sounds a lot like the returning Viet Nam veterans who were spit on. It only makes sense to those with a particular political ideology.
The vast majority of black people who wont' talk to the police are afraid of retribution from black men, not the police. The vast majority of immmigrants who won't talk to police are afraid of other immigrants, not the police.
Crime statistics
By starluna
Wed, 07/22/2009 - 9:50am
I had a spirited back and forth with Maria Cramer two months ago on this issue when she wrote an article making it appear as if Eastie was some kind of hotbed of crime. I would like to repeat a few of the things I pointed out to her:
Crime statistics must be looked at with a longer view. There are regular patterns of increase and decrease that can make looking at less than 1 year changes dangerously misleading. Looking at 6 years of data, even for the same time periods, you will see that East Boston's crime rate remains largely stable.
2005 - 12.2 per 1000 residents
2006 - 11
2007 - 11.9
2008 - 8.2 (an anomaly for sure)
2009 - 12
(Note: the reporting period for 2007 is Jan 1 to Apr 29, for all other years it is Jan 1 - Apr 20)
When you look at the per capita rate of crime in each district, you will see that East Boston consistently ranks in the lower half of districts. Looking at the Jan 1 to Jul 19 2009 period, you'll see:
East Boston - 20 reported crimes per 1000 residents
Charlestown's - 63.5
Central Boston's - 51
South Boston's - 35.1
Even Back Bay's crime rate is higher than East Boston's. In all of the crime reports that have been published this year, the crime rate in Charlestown, Central Boston and South Boston are consistently and significantly higher than East Boston.
The upshot is that looking at the historical patterns you will find that there is no significant increase in overall crime in East Boston. There is an uptick in burglaries which is a concern but doesn't appear to be statistically significant. But, looking at the historical data, it is safer to live in Eastie than in the Back Bay.