Officials: Violent crime in cities up during pandemic
NEW HAVEN — It will require a collective effort — “all hands on deck” — to address the f actors spurring violent crime in Connecticut cit i es, which has increased during the pandemic.
The words of Stacy Spell, coordinator of Project Longevit y in New Haven and a former city detective, were met with approval Friday as he, New Haven Police Chief Otoniel Reyes and other offi ci als took part in a discussion organized by Gov. Ned Lamont to consider crime and law enforcement during the pandemic.
Marc Pelka, undersecretar y of the state Office and Policy and Management’s Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Division, and the moderator of Friday’s discussion, said arrests across the state became more common during the pandemic, now up about 7 percent since August; pretrial admissions rose; and shootings increased in New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport and Waterbur y, among other municipalities.
This follows a 38 percent decrease in reported crime in Connecticut between 2009 and 2019, he noted.
Reyes, Waterbur y Mayor Neil O’L ear y and Waterbur y Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo said the pandemic affected the support system for individuals at risk of committing crime, helping give rise to an increase in violent crime and crimes by juveniles.
Among other f actors, O’L ear y said the pandemic disr upted communication among state agencies; Spagnolo said it had become more difficult for parole and police to meet and inter vene with people released from prison, helping them reenter society after time away; and Reyes noted that children without parental support had less guidance with schools closed.
“When people are being released back into our communit i es from the care of the Department of Correction, it ’s important that we continue to support them with ser vices that
may have been provided for them in that care, and it ’s also imperative for us to understand that they’re coming back to a community that they’ve been separated from for a while — and they may not have a network,” said Spagnolo.
“It may be difficult for them to find medical care, potentially substance abuse treatment if necessar y, or behavioral health assistance,” said Spagnolo. “We do our best to tr y to provide that for them; the pandemic has really str uck a chord and kind of halted some of that. We’ve had to find just a way to help provide that assistance to these folks. Some of it works, some of it , frankly, doesn’t.”
Reyes, responding to the idea of changing the juvenile review board system, described a recent incident in which two young people were found sleeping in a stolen car with a gun in their possession. Officers “retrieved the gun” from one of their waistbands, he said, and “did a phenomenal job” deescalating a potentially dangerous and tragic scenario.
One of the young people had a warrant for similar outstanding offenses; he had gone missing from home, but the department had not been notified.
“What are the underlying issues that need to be addressed that are leading to this individual continuing to steal cars, continuing to engage in this behavior, that is ultimately go ing to drive him down a path where he is go ing to come in
contact with law enforcement, where there is go ing to be a tragedy, either to him or someone else?” Reyes said. “We are identifying these individuals, but we have to connect them with ser vices directly related to the underlying issues impacting these individuals. Other wise, we’re just spinning our wheels.”
Achilles Generoso, former assistant chief in the New Haven Police Department and the statewide head of Project Longevity, said the pandemic both created new issues and exacerbated existing ones for people, helping spur crime.
“There are more people in crisis due to the pandemic. There are more people that have mental health problems. And because of this, we are seeing this high spike in violence, especially gun violence in the inner cities,” said Generoso. “There are lessons to be learned from this. We have to have a better support system to deal with these problems, and to be able to mobilize our resources in a way that we can immediately address these i ssues as we see them come into being.”
Spell said he had heard from people in the city who expressed fr ustration about diff i - culty accessing personal protective equipment; hunger, as hours are cut and jobs are l ost; and the lack of opportunities for young people.
The Project Longevity chapters in New Haven and Water
bur y are expected to receive $ 125,000 grants from the federal government in the near future, Pelka announced Friday.
Generoso said Project Longevity, which meets with people at risk of committing or suffering from violence, would play an important role in addressing the uptick in crime.
In New Haven, these funds will go toward emergency pandemic-related outlays by Project Longevity, including down payments for housing and therapy for trauma, Pelka said.
Spell said the pandemic could provide the opportunity for a reset in the collective consideration of crime, allowing people and organizations from across society to band together to address the underlying f actors behind it and help children expand and consider their understanding of the world.
“We have to find some way to inter vene, to get some way to see their humanity, to see their self worth, to realize that our communities prosper and do better when they are a viable part of (them),” said Spell. “There’s so much we can do in providing opportunities, providing exchange.
“I can’t say this enough: when you know better, you do better. When you have a relationship, whether it’s with a police officer, whether it’s with a clerg y person, whether it ’s with a teacher, whether it ’s with a coach — that’s all involved in the process of helping to address the violence and what’s go ing on in our communities,” Spell said. “The more people we have into the process, the better off we’ll be. This is a time, such is now, to bring all hands on deck.”
Pelka said the pandemic had made “long-entrenched” inequit i es in society clear, with those issues, including education, access to health care, and the conditions that dictate mortality rates, now “swelling in cit - ies that have disproportionately f el t the impact of this pandemi c. ”
He noted that law enforcement has to function in that environment, do ing it s job in “saving lives, restoring l ives, and holding these communities together.”
Lamont described the mental health impact and economic impact of the pandemic as he considered the increase in crime and rationale for Friday’s meeting, noting people in Connecticut were dealing with the stress of the moment.
He credited law enforcement in Connecticut for appropriately responding to protests about racial justice.
Lamont also vouched for the importance of inter vening with children at a young age — an officer who knows a person as a “mediocre third baseman” in Little League has a different relationship with them in the future, when they may commit a crime, he said — and said the state was striving to address crime and the negative economic impact of the pandemic.
“What we’ve got to do is work together as communities to keep us on track, to make sure that the depression, make sure the economic distress, make sure, in terms of public safety, we do ever ything that we can. Because, look, we are beginning to distribute the vaccines next week,” said Lamont. “And what we can do to make sure that people know there is a way through this pandemic, and there is an end zone there, and we’re on that way.”