I guess what I don't understand is, if we can acknowledge that so-called "Hand-me-down guns" (eh??) are the "new thing"....Then why oh why are we advocating a national registry/ballistic fingerprinting???
Source
Hand-me-down guns
VIOLENT CRIMINALS in Boston are becoming less choosy about their firearms, leading to multiple uses of the same gun by multiple felons. This means the public safety climate should improve significantly each time police confiscate a so-called ''community gun.''
''In the 1990s, kids wanted guns new in the box,'' says Police Superintendent Paul Joyce. But now, he says, a gun, even ''with a body on it,'' is more likely to stay in local circulation.
So far this year, police have identified 41 firearms that have been involved in 114 separate shooting incidents. Joyce believes that many of the individual weapons were used by different shooters.
In July, for example, police recovered a .22-caliber handgun in a Hyde Park home invasion. Ballistics experts linked the weapon to seven nonfatal shootings over a two-week period in June. One man is suspected in four of the shootings. But the gun, police believe, may have fallen into different hands for the other three.
Other subtle shifts that require fresh responses can be seen across the city. Special units no longer focus mainly on youths in the 16-to-24 age range, as they did in the 1990s. The average age of today's ''high-impact player,'' in Joyce's words, is about 30, and he was recently released from jail or prison. But youths as young as 11 are also known to police for serious criminal activity.
Law enforcement officials took an innovative step this week to better track ex-inmates. Some parolees now report directly to the police station in Fields Corner for processing and follow-up by parole officers. This Dorchester pilot program could have a major impact if the Legislature ever sees the wisdom of passing a sentencing reform bill that includes provisions for mandatory supervision of released inmates, a public safety advance that is long overdue.
Police are also being more innovative in the area of data analysis. Until recently, police researchers worked largely on youth gang containment. Now analysts have been assigned to each of the city's 12 police areas, and detectives, ballistics experts, and prosecutors meet biweekly to analyze unsolved shootings and explore crime reduction strategies.
Police hope to see results in Grove Hall, where spikes in violent crime this summer destabilized a comeback neighborhood. Police researchers have identified 214 individuals whose names kept reappearing either through intelligence or at arraignments. Now officers are targeting about 50 of the most hard-core offenders for arrest and prosecution while steering others to social and intervention programs.
There is some thinking in Boston that the police have lost the focus that earned them national accolades for crime reduction in the 1990s. But recent initiatives suggest that the department is living on more than past glory.
This story ran on page A16 of the Boston Globe on 10/19/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
Source
Hand-me-down guns
VIOLENT CRIMINALS in Boston are becoming less choosy about their firearms, leading to multiple uses of the same gun by multiple felons. This means the public safety climate should improve significantly each time police confiscate a so-called ''community gun.''
''In the 1990s, kids wanted guns new in the box,'' says Police Superintendent Paul Joyce. But now, he says, a gun, even ''with a body on it,'' is more likely to stay in local circulation.
So far this year, police have identified 41 firearms that have been involved in 114 separate shooting incidents. Joyce believes that many of the individual weapons were used by different shooters.
In July, for example, police recovered a .22-caliber handgun in a Hyde Park home invasion. Ballistics experts linked the weapon to seven nonfatal shootings over a two-week period in June. One man is suspected in four of the shootings. But the gun, police believe, may have fallen into different hands for the other three.
Other subtle shifts that require fresh responses can be seen across the city. Special units no longer focus mainly on youths in the 16-to-24 age range, as they did in the 1990s. The average age of today's ''high-impact player,'' in Joyce's words, is about 30, and he was recently released from jail or prison. But youths as young as 11 are also known to police for serious criminal activity.
Law enforcement officials took an innovative step this week to better track ex-inmates. Some parolees now report directly to the police station in Fields Corner for processing and follow-up by parole officers. This Dorchester pilot program could have a major impact if the Legislature ever sees the wisdom of passing a sentencing reform bill that includes provisions for mandatory supervision of released inmates, a public safety advance that is long overdue.
Police are also being more innovative in the area of data analysis. Until recently, police researchers worked largely on youth gang containment. Now analysts have been assigned to each of the city's 12 police areas, and detectives, ballistics experts, and prosecutors meet biweekly to analyze unsolved shootings and explore crime reduction strategies.
Police hope to see results in Grove Hall, where spikes in violent crime this summer destabilized a comeback neighborhood. Police researchers have identified 214 individuals whose names kept reappearing either through intelligence or at arraignments. Now officers are targeting about 50 of the most hard-core offenders for arrest and prosecution while steering others to social and intervention programs.
There is some thinking in Boston that the police have lost the focus that earned them national accolades for crime reduction in the 1990s. But recent initiatives suggest that the department is living on more than past glory.
This story ran on page A16 of the Boston Globe on 10/19/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.