Should We Have Faith in the Churches? Ten-Point Coalition's Effect on Boston's Youth Violence

The Boston story is similar to that of other cities but is unusual in two important respects. First, the drop in the homicide rate between 1990 and 1996 has been the sharpest in the nation. Perhaps even more impressive, for the 29-month period ending in January 1998, Boston had no teenage homicide victims. Since that time there have been four. This paper addresses the question of whether or not a group of ministers, the Ten-Point Coalition, has in fact played a significant role in the reduction of youth violence in Boston. Our analysis has several goals. First and most important, we want to establish that the Ten-Point Coalition has been critical to the reduction of youth violence in Boston. We plan to conduct the further research needed to firmly establish the validity of this claim. Second, we will analyze why it has been difficult for police departments to effectively reduce violence. We will argue more generally, that any police action in the inner city is inherently problematic. Our third goal is to suggest what types of policies are likely to be effective in reducing youth violence in the inner city over the long run.