Boston's Operation Night Light

In the early 1990s, Boston experienced a dramatic growth in gang-related violence and youth victimization. Boston's Operation Night Light, an enhanced supervision program, is considered one of the first formalized partnerships between police and probation officers in the United States. The goal of the [Page 29]program was to reduce juvenile recidivism and gang violence through increased enforcement of curfews, geographic restrictions, gang association restrictions, and other probation conditions.

The partnership was born from a chance encounter in 1990 between probation officers of Dorchester, Massachusetts, District Court and police officers of the Boston Police Department Anti-Gang Violence Unit. The officers realized that they were often dealing with the same offenders, and, as a result, a series of brainstorming sessions were organized to promote interagency collaboration. Operation Night Light was officially formed on November 12, 1992, when two probation officers, Bill Stewart and Rich Skinner, got in the backseat of a police car with two police officers, Bobby Merner and Bobby Fratalia, to perform the first of many joint patrols. Probation officer Stewart later stated, “We never used to leave the office or talk to the police… but in the early 1990s the probation office looked like a MASH unit and we were seeing these officers in the courthouse all the time, and we realized we were all dealing with the same kids. And one day they said, do you want to ride together?”

Operation Night Light is a component of a larger intervention known as Operation Ceasefire (Boston's Gun Project). In Night Light, probation officers were matched with officers of the Boston Police Department. The probation officers selected 10 to 15 of their most high-risk youths, typically ages 17–25, and known for their gang affiliations. The team used unmarked cruisers and wore plain clothes while visiting each probationer at his home, school, or workplace while also driving through locations known for criminal activity and youthful congregation. Officers would also discuss substance abuse prevention and treatment options with youths and their families. The program focused on conducting supervision visits between 7:00 p. m. and midnight, when the youths were known to be more active on the streets. This required that probation officers alter their normal business hours, sending a greater message of accountability to probationers. Probationers possess diminished privacy rights and can be apprehended for a variety of noncriminal offenses. Under state law, probation officers have unrestricted rights to search for contraband and to visit their clients at any time. The Night Light program provided Boston police officers with information about who was on probation and about their conditions of supervision. As a result, police officers on the street could function as additional eyes for probation outside the joint patrols.

Targeting juveniles and youths on probation, Operation Night Light was launched in 1992. The program uses a coalition of probation officers and the Boston Police department to conduct unannounced visits to the homes, schools, and worksites of high-risk youths.

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A large portion of the partnership involved intelligence sharing. In one example, the probation officers used the gang unit's intelligence to justify to judges the need for curfews and area restrictions as conditions of gang-affiliated offenders' probation. Officers also shared information concerning gang members with other local, state, and federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

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