In the past few weeks, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno of Springfield, Massachusetts has taken a “all the above” approach to dealing with gun violence in the city. This approach includes numerous ideas that were novel when tough-on-crime mayors tried them in the 1990s. We have stated that we are looking forward to hearing the “multi-pronged approach” that the mayor would be taking to confront the issue of gun violence in the city, which has resulted in 27 deaths so far this year.
Even while two of the programmes he has introduced in the previous few weeks will have some secondary advantages for the community, they will not do much to lower the amount of gun violence that is occurring in the year 2023.
At least for a limited amount of time, the city has made available to young people who are in possession of the gray-and-blue tickets a pass that grants them free access to the services provided by organisations such as the Boys and Girls Club, community centres, and ROCA. According to the mayor, this was an effort to reroute kids who were heading in the direction of violence. The “University City Pass,” according to officials speaking at the press conference, will be distributed not just by police officers but also at barber shops and senior centres.
This programme bases its operations, in part, on the premise that young people are the primary drivers of gun violence. According to Police Superintendent Cheryl Clapprood, the numbers do not support that story. She used her most recent monthly column to point out that the majority of the gun homicides witnessed in the city this year were committed by individuals in their 30s, and she used those statistics to illustrate her point.
In a further move, the departments of the Springfield Police Department and the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department plan to purchase firearms from members of the community at an event that will take place this month. In exchange, they will be offering Big Y gift cards. The company has announced that it will provide gift certificates worth $50 for each gun purchased. In the 1970s, the city of Baltimore also ran a gun buyback programme in which it paid $50 every weapon turned in.
Sarno, when launching the programme, stated that the gun buyback is a part of an effort to combat the surge in gun violence that has occurred this year and as a measure to remove guns from circulation in the community.
Researchers from institutions such as the RAND Corporation and the Shorenstein Centre at the Harvard Kennedy School state that there is little evidence to suggest that these buybacks reduce down the rate of gun violence. Gun owners who keep their weapons as status symbols or as a method to protect themselves and their families are typically excluded from buyback programmes.
Buyback programmes, according to researchers and authorities in local law enforcement, can have a limited amount of utility in terms of removing inactive firearms from circulation and keeping them out of the hands of children who would otherwise discover and mishandle them.
In a recent guest essay, Juanita Batchelor, Andrew King, Leon Smith, and Ruth Zakarin provide a list of actions that can be taken to reduce the amount of violence in Springfield “through meaningful change that creates a Springfield that is safe for everyone.”
We applaud the individuals of the community who have visited with Sarno this year in an effort to obtain answers. Their work is essential, and it should not be stopped. It won’t be enough to just hand out pieces of paper and gift cards to get the shooting to stop reverberating throughout the city and the region.
