Gun Violence in Boston

Boston’s overall gun violence has fallen dramatically since the 1990s, yet shootings remain tightly clustered among a small number of people, places, and groups. In 2023 the city recorded its lowest number of shooting incidents since 2005, when the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) began tracking incident-level data. That milestone capped several years of targeted “group violence” work combining precision policing with community-based intervention. Still, the remaining shootings are disproportionately tied to gang disputes and drug markets, which continue to function as the main engines of serious violence in the city.

A useful way to see Boston’s gun violence is through the criminological “law of crime concentration”: a small share of chronic offenders and micro-locations account for most shootings. In Boston, that concentration is embedded in the group (gang/crew) ecology. Federal cases and local intelligence repeatedly show that a handful of crews—many based in or around long-standing public-housing sites and corridors in Roxbury, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, and Mattapan—drive a large share of shootings. Recent prosecutions illustrate the pattern. In February 2024, federal prosecutors charged 40+ alleged members and associates of the Heath Street Gang with racketeering, drug trafficking, and firearms offenses following a two-year investigation into gang violence; authorities recovered dozens of guns and described a revenue stream rooted in cocaine and fentanyl. In August 2024 and mid-2025, separate cases charged/ sentenced H-Block members in drug-and-gun conspiracies. These filings reinforce what street workers and detectives see daily: guns and drug revenues are deeply intertwined, and retaliatory gunplay often grows from disputes over corners, supply, and status.

The drug market mechanism operates in three overlapping ways. First, territorial control: in high-demand micro-markets, a single block can generate steady cash flow; encroachment by rivals is met with armed enforcement. Second, debt and theft: non-payment, shorting, or robberies of dealers trigger retaliatory shootings designed to restore reputation and deter future losses. Third, informal governance: because illicit markets lack courts and contracts, violence substitutes for formal dispute resolution. In Boston’s current landscape, the fentanyl/cocaine poly-drug era, distribution is more networked and mobile than the open-air crack markets of the 1990s, but the coercive logic remains. The DEA’s 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment identifies Boston as a New England hub in fentanyl supply chains, and recent Massachusetts cases show guns and fentanyl moving together through the same crews.

Historically, Boston’s signature progress against gun violence came from Operation Ceasefire, a focused-deterrence strategy launched in 1996 that treated group gun violence as a preventable, communicable problem rather than a diffuse moral failing. The seminal evaluation linked Ceasefire to a 63% reduction in youth homicide and substantial drops in youth gun assaults. Later meta-analyses and replications found focused-deterrence approaches produce statistically significant reductions in gun violence when properly implemented, even whilst noting design limitations in some evaluations. Boston’s contemporary Group Violence Intervention (GVI) builds on those lessons: identify the small number of active groups, deliver a dual message (help is available; shootings bring swift, certain sanctions), and coordinate services for those ready to exit. The 2023 low in shootings coincided with this renewed “precision + services” model.

Why, then, does gun violence still persist at the levels it does? One reason is because the underlying markets and social incentives regenerate. Even large federal sweeps (like Heath Street or H-Block) remove key actors but leave behind demand, profit opportunities, and social media-amplified status competitions that recruit the next cohort. In this sense, Boston’s gun violence reflects structural conditions such as concentrated poverty, housing segregation, and limited formal employment—that keep the illegal trade attractive to young men with few viable alternatives. Focused enforcement lowers shootings now, but durable and permanent reductions require pairing it with credible-messenger outreach, income pathways, and swift services (treatment slots, transitional jobs, housing), so that backing away from group conflicts is feasible, not just advisable. This is the “balanced approach” that Boston’s partners—city agencies, clergy, community groups, probation, schools—have pursued since Ceasefire.

A second reason is retaliation dynamics. Many Boston shootings are not instrumental robberies but status conflicts that metastasize across Instagram tracks, memorial. videos, and comments. The moment a shooter signals dominance, the targeted side “owes” an answer. Focused-deterrence frameworks attack that loop by communicating directly to groups at highest risk: if a group member shoots, the whole group experiences coordinated enforcement pressure (probation checks, gun charges prioritize, nuisance abatement), whilst the whole group is also offered a path to resources if they stop the shootings. The evaluation literature suggests this group-accountability design is what distinguishes GVI from generic “hotspots” policing; it reshapes incentives within groups rather than simply moving them.

The drug supply piece has also shifted. Fentanyl’s potency and profit margins have transformed risk calculus: crews can move smaller volumes for higher returns, increasing the utility of firearms for protection and intimidation whilst making interdiction harder. Recent Boston-area federal pressers routinely describe guns seized alongside fentanyl/cocaine and note that mid-level players shuttle between Boston neighborhoods and feeder nodes (e.g., the Merrimack Valley). That combination of cheap wholesale fentanyl, high retail margins, and ubiquitous firearms access keeps the violence elasticity high even as total shootings fall citywide.

What has been found to work best in Boston now blends four elements: (1) People-focused deterrence (GVI call-ins, custom notifications, small-N case management); (2) Place-based precision (BRIC-led hotspot and social-network analysis, probation/parole coordination); (3) Services with teeth (immediate access to treatment, jobs, housing, coupled with swift consequences for new violence); and (4) Strategic federal partnerships (RICO/drug/gun cases that incapacitate the most violent crews). The city’s 2023 shooting lows align with that mixed model, whilst the 2024–2025 gang cases show how federal leverage complements local prevention by removing the small fraction who continue to shoot despite offers of help.

Two cautions matter for policy and practice. First, measurement: the public often asks “how many shootings are about drugs or gangs?” The data rarely code motives neatly. A homicide labeled “dispute” can in fact be a drug debt, a turf encroachment, or a feud flowing from an earlier drug robbery. Case-linkage reviews and federal affidavits suggest that a large fraction, possibly around half of Boston’s most serious shootings have direct or indirect drug ties, but the exact percentage varies by year and classification method. Second, legitimacy: Boston’s famous 1990s success rested on community partners (and especially clergy) who believed the strategy was fair. When legitimacy frays, cooperation and witness participation collapse, and focused deterrence loses its comparative advantage over generic enforcement. The most recent implementation guidance emphasizes building with community first, not treating it as an afterthought.

In short, Boston’s gun violence today is smaller in scale but stubbornly shaped by gangs and drugs. The city’s best results emerge when enforcement and services are aimed at the smallest possible target set, the groups and micro-markets at highest risk,and when community partners co-own the work. Continued investment in GVI, rapid service delivery, and selective federal cases against the most violent crews offers the clearest path to sustain the city’s recent gains whilst addressing the drug-driven incentives behind the gunfire.