Crime problems in the Allston-Brighton area will have to take a back seat to more pressing problems, such as gun violence and turf wars in other parts of the city, for at least the next few years, city officials say – although they said they are taking the rising number of assaults reported in the area seriously.
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said Boston’s biggest problem is gun violence, and the city is working to better allocate resources to temper the bloodshed in dangerous parts of the city.
“The type of behavior [in the Allston-Brighton area] is not as dangerous as the type of behavior that we experience in other neighborhoods,” said Davis, who was named commissioner in December 2006.
The Boston Police Department, to maintain safety in Allston-Brighton’s bars and off-campus parties, has increased patrols in the area and started education programs for bar owners and employees in response to reports of sexual and drug-related assaults, Davis said.
“A lot of it is making sure people, underage or of age, don’t over-drink,” he said, “making sure we enforce over-serving laws at establishments college students frequent.”
City Councilor Jerry McDermott (Allston, Brighton) said he disagrees with Davis’s explanation that certain neighborhoods should be higher on the city’s list of priorities.
“I’m sure the commissioner has good feedback,” he said, “but we need more police in every neighborhood.”
McDermott added the biggest problems he sees in Boston stem not from students, but from break-ins by residents of the more violent parts of Roxbury and Dorchester.
“There’s always a stereotype that you have to worry about drunken college students [causing trouble] because they’re drunk,” McDermott said, “and they do get drunk – I was a college student once, too.”
Davis said the BPD did not play a role in the city’s decision earlier this year to suspend under-21 nights at Lansdowne Street and Theater District nightclubs.
“Those decisions came out of City Hall,” he said, though he said he supports the Boston Licensing Authority’s decision to ban underage people from nightclubs because their presence at the clubs was poorly managed.
With fewer police needed to patrol these club areas, The BPD can now focus more efforts on District 4 (Fenway/Kenmore) and District 14 (Allston-Brighton), whose officers sometimes bring Boston University officials on ride-alongs, Davis said.
BU spokesman Colin Riley said university officials have accompanied police on patrol on weekend nights during the first several weeks of the academic year for the past 15 to 20 years.
“It’s less about the [potential] crime,” he said. “It’s more about letting students know we care about how they conduct themselves off-campus.”
Although BU students are generally well-behaved considering the school’s size, Riley said, he has been present during ride-alongs when students have been arrested.
“We’ll be out there again as the weather gets good,” he said. “If our students are creating a problem out there – whether through disruptions, vandalism, noise – we’re holding [them] accountable.”