Vilma Ruiz says she feels like a prisoner in her own neighborhood.

“If it’s after 7 p.m., I don’t go out,” said Ruiz as she walked down Meridian Street in East Boston on Thursday afternoon, her two young children in tow. “If I run out of milk, I’ll tell my husband to swing by the store and pick some up when he leaves work, because I don’t dare leave the house.”