Boston police say there’s an “uptick” of recent folks hanging round Mass and Cass as authorities look to maintain forward of a brand new wave of tents and are utilizing civil commitments with the aim of getting some folks off the world’s streets.
“There has been an uptick of new individuals in the area,” Lt. Peter Messina, the Boston Police Department’s level man on Mass and Cass mentioned in a digital assembly with neighbors on Tuesday. “We are getting their names and trying to get their stories.”
Messina was giving an replace on public security within the troubled space of the South End referred to as Mass and Cass, the place an open-air drug market prospers and other people will be seen shopping for, promoting and utilizing medicine.
Messina mentioned about 100 to 125 folks round out and about on the streets today, numbers which have trended down because the climate’s gotten cooler, as is regular.
The division can be utilizing “Section 35” civil commitments for substance abuse, eradicating 14 folks from the world because the begin of September. That choice has been hotly debated together with on the City Council flooring by some who say it’s an necessary device to get folks out of the troubled space and others who say it doesn’t assist and solely results in folks being extra prone to overdose once they get out.
Messina mentioned crime was about flat as in contrast with final yr up to now, however that there aren’t any homicides up to now this yr, versus six in 2021. Violent crime has nudged up, from 201 reported incidents final yr up to now as much as 228 this yr, whereas property crime has dropped from 468 to 433. Robberies, automobile thefts and aggravated assaults have been the 2 classes that noticed significant will increase, whereas larcenies dropped.
The cops have made 160 drug arrests and summonsed 207 extra folks for associated offenses.
Messina spotlighted the push since February to chop down on prostitution and intercourse trafficking. He mentioned that the division had arrested 16 folks for “sex for pay” — prostitution — and 45 for soliciting intercourse. The cops have nabbed three folks for intercourse trafficking and have related greater than 80 trafficked girls with companies, Messina mentioned.
The space hasn’t had the identical entrenched encampment points that it did since January, when town cleared the a whole lot of tents away, however Messina mentioned extra “have begun popping up again.”
They’re taken down, although, by staff through the thrice-weekly cleanings of the world or at different occasions all through the day.
The cops mentioned, “We are moving in the right direction in changing perception of the area.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”