Providence Mayoral Candidates on Growing Juvenile Crime Issue

Providence Mayoral Candidates on Growing Juvenile Crime Issue

In just the past ten days, a string of crimes have hit Providence and many are believed to have been committed by juveniles — the spree includes the stabbing of a Good Samaritan, the robbery of a 72-year-old woman, and the burning of a youth football team’s bus and equipment.

Three of the Providence Mayoral candidates gave comments as to how they would handle the issue.

Nirva LaFortune, the councilor in the Third Ward told GoLocal, “I know firsthand what it means to lose someone to gun violence. As a mother, keeping our neighborhoods safe is a top priority. In the past few years, I have attended too many funerals and their images laying still in a casket are imprinted in my mind. I owe it to those young people whose families had to bury them too soon to continue to work towards creating safe and healthy communities where our young people can thrive."

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"It's concerning," Providence Police Chief Hugh Clements told GoLocal on Sunday. "It's something we’ve seen and discussed in conversations with colleagues regionally and nationally. But yes, we’ve seen an uptick in a more granular way in the last year and a half to two years."

 

A Health Crisis

LaFortune said the issue of juvenile crime is multi-dimensional.

“The influx of violence is not just in Providence. It's a national public health crisis that requires a holistic and comprehensive approach to public safety. We must look into and address the root causes of the violence in our communities. We need to set the conditions so that our young people have access to a quality education that could lead to college or the workforce; make investments in our neighborhoods so young people can have access to clean and safe recreation and community centers with activities and wrap-around services; expand summer jobs and year-round skills development and mentorship programs; and work with community centers, youth organizations and the Nonviolence Institute so our young people can be civically engaged and learn how to address conflict without violence,” LaFortune added.

 

More Than Police

LaFortune said the response needs more than policing.

“We also need to provide counselors and mental health services in our schools and a public safety structure that is rooted in community policing so that we have officers that reflect the communities that they are serving and are walking and biking the streets as well as engaging with the residents and youth regularly to further build trust. We also need outreach workers from the Nonviolence Institute who can help de-escalate situations before they can potentially erupt to violence, and a crisis response team within the public safety ecosystem that can respond to mental and behavioral health crises and connect people to services instead of criminalizing them,” said LaFortune.

LaFortune added, “As Mayor, I am committed to not just having a public safety infrastructure that responds to crime, but also works towards preventing them from happening in the first place. Our City can do this by having the infrastructure to respond to incidents appropriately, intervene so that it does not escalate and create opportunities and resources so it does not happen again.”

 

Cuervo Say Families Need to "Feel Safe"

Gonzalo Cuervo, the former top staffer to RI Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, said, “Keeping our families safe is the Mayor's top priority. Families feel safe when crime is down, they have good job opportunities, and there are meaningful and safe things for their kids to do in the community. They feel safe when they know that they have a responsive, accountable police force, coupled with economic security and hope for the future.”

Cuervo added, "Those things go hand in hand. As Mayor, I will build and restore trust between the police and the community, and I will invest resources in our neighborhoods, in wrap-around services, and in creating greater afterschool and job opportunities for our youth. We need to give kids the opportunity to choose something other than crime as a solution to their economic situation.” 

 

Smiley's Spokesperson - Prevent these Crimes Before they Happen

Providence mayoral candidate Brett Smiley’s cmapaign spokesperson said, “He believes that addressing all crime will require building on our experience in community policing while making immediate and significant investments in opportunities for youth-- employment, recreation, and education. Especially in the case of juvenile crime, the main goal is to prevent these crimes before they happen.”

“That requires increasing our existing partnerships and investing in partners like Family Services of RI, the Institute and Tides Family Services, who are working with our youth every day. In order to truly support our youth, we need to extend recreation opportunities, especially on the weekends, to give our youth a safe space. We also need to foster better connections between those recreation centers and our schools and nonprofits, so that we are creating communities of support for youth who may otherwise turn to crime,” Smiley's campaign spokesperson added.

Candidate Michael Solomon did not respond to request for comment.