Homicides in Boston are on track to fall for the third straight year, driven downward by solid police work, an aging population, and better trauma care, according to law enforcement officials and specialists.
By Monday evening, Boston had 58 homicides for the year, which compares with 62 in 2011 and 74 in 2010, Boston police said.
Comments
Homicides are down because less people die because of medical treatment.
Are shootings up or down?
Tony: Good question, I am pretty good at reading the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, however, trying to get the information extracted on a city by city basis has eluded me thus far. However, on a state wide basis, MA has not realized the same drops in rate of gun crimes as most other states. This is interesting because evidently Boston is doing much better than the rest of the state.
Obviously medical treatment is very important, but I think that aggressive policing plays a HUGE role. Gun laws, not so much. The reason I say this is because states that do not have anywhere near the gun laws that exist in MA have reduced their gun crimes at a much faster rate. Another example would be our own Roxbury where police have recently taken a much more aggressive posture and reduced the crime rate significantly. A further example would be NYC (though I am no fan of Bloomberg), where questionable policing techniques have reduced crime.