Mayor Michelle Wu, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox and Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden outlined what they called an “evolution” of the city’s plan to tackle its open-air drug market — which spilled into the downtown and other neighborhoods at and around Mass and Cass after the Atkinson Street encampment was cleared in the fall of 2023.
While the plan — rolled out Wednesday afternoon at a press conference that was seemingly responsive to persistent public safety complaints in downtown areas like the Common and Downtown Crossing — includes more police enforcement, it will largely focus on getting congregate drug users and dealers into addiction treatment.
“At the end of the day, this issue is about sobriety,” Hayden said. “Incarceration is not the answer to help get them sober, and if we don’t get them sober, then they’re coming back.
“If we don’t address the underlying issue, then we don’t solve the problem, and they will continue to commit whatever crime they were committing, whether it’s drug use, whether it’s drug dealing to support the habit, whether it’s shoplifting, whether it’s robbing somebody, whatever it may be, that’s what we’re trying to deal with,” the DA added.
Asked whether drug dealers would be prosecuted by his office and incarcerated, Hayden said it depends on the situation.
He said his office would look to hold “people who prey on the vulnerable” accountable, but would aim to largely divert drug users and people who deal drugs to feed their addiction, to treatment.
“People that are preying on the vulnerable on our streets, that have drug addiction problems and are dealing drugs in the streets, should be held accountable, and yes, they should be incarcerated,” Hayden said. “But if substance abuse disorder is the underlying problem, we need to address that.”
Hayden described the plan to tackle congregate substance use as a “targeted and balanced approach towards accountability and enforcement, and treatment and diversion at the same time.”
Cox said the Boston Police Department would “probably” enforce violations involving “open-air drug use” and “things of that nature” that are against the law, but noted that each individual case and person is different.
People could be dealing with health issues or have other things going on, he said.
“But the fact is, we are making a conscious effort to try to enforce, to deter the people that are coming down there feeding these people — and when I say feeding, I mean drugs and other means — to not be there and actually arrest them because those are the people we’re really looking for,” Cox said.
“If we do happen to catch someone who is certainly addicted,” the police commissioner added, “there’s a diversion aspect to this.”
The “evolved” city plan comes amid heightened focus on violence and open-air drug use downtown, which the police department has previously attributed to spillover from the former long-time Mass and Cass encampment that was cleared via a city ordinance proposed by the mayor in November 2023.
Police statistics show total crime, including drug dealing and shoplifting, reached the highest level in roughly seven years in the Downtown Crossing/Boston Common area last year — with 995 crimes reported, compared to 958 in 2023, according to a Boston Globe report.
Just last week, two teens were arrested for allegedly assaulting and robbing a man in Macy’s, in the downtown shopping district. Last summer, a near-fatal stabbing in Downtown Crossing fueled public safety concerns in the area.
Mayor Wu, who also spoke at the day’s media briefing, outlined her administration’s intention to tackle congregate substance use as means of addressing those issues in a memo that she plans to file with the City Council next week.
“Notwithstanding the significant progress in housing individuals, reducing violent crime, decreasing the average crowd size in Mass and Cass and keeping Boston encampment-free, new congregations of outdoor substance users, and related activity emerged as the most pressing issue impacting quality of life for residents citywide, particularly in the downtown and Boston Common, Roxbury, the South End, and parts of Dorchester and South Boston,” the city memo states.
“After a sustained period without significant crowding from November 2023 thru April 2024, congregate outdoor substance use emerged as a daily challenge at the Mass and Cass intersection, the surrounding areas, and in areas of downtown Boston,” the memo states.
Until colder weather in late 2024, the memo said the city received an uptick in 311 calls for “needle pickup, human waste, and other impacts on quality of life, and more individuals congregating and in need of recovery services.”
The citywide 2025 strategy is to end congregate substance use and related criminal activity in Boston neighborhoods. That involves a “set of updated strategies” that build on the city’s existing intervention, coordinated response and enforcement approach. There will be more of a police response in the “broader Mass and Cass area and other congregate sites,” the city memo said.
While Wu and the police department have cited the city’s low homicide rate last year as evidence Boston is the “safest major city” in the country, Cox said he wouldn’t dismiss the public’s feeling that downtown is unsafe.
“I’m not going to say anything is overblown,” Cox said. “If one person is fearful, that’s something that we should address.”
Wu, per her schedule, will attend a public safety meeting hosted by the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association on Thursday evening.
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