South End surge: Arrests spiked by 163% this summer amid Mass and Cass spillover: Boston Police

Arrests spiked 163% this summer in the South End, a staggering statistic from the Boston Police that reflects how the neighborhood continues to be a hot spot for the Mass and Cass drug market spillover.

Boston Police made 478 arrests from May 1 to Aug. 24 in the South End this year, compared to 182 for that same time period in 2024, according to BPD statistics shared at an Aug. 27 Community CompStat “summer overview” meeting and summarized in a 14-page document obtained by the Herald.

The document provides a snapshot of the open-air drug use, dealing and related crime and violence that South End residents say has worsened in recent months in their neighborhood — classified as BPD’s D4 district — due to spillover from the troubled intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.

The 163% increase in arrests in the South End amounts to 296 additional arrests during the majority of this year’s warm-weather season, when city officials have said drug activity, crime and crowding tends to spike at and around Mass and Cass.

Despite the spike in police enforcement this year, the document also reflects concerns that have been raised continually by South End residents and businesses: that the Boston Police Department doesn’t have the resources to keep up with the amount of crime occurring in that hot-spot area.

Police fielded 2,804 quality-of-life calls from the South End, from May 1 to Aug. 24. The majority of those calls were for public intoxication (1,316), disturbing the peace (322) and noise (315), per BPD statistics.

Intravenous drug use was reported to police 138 times during that time period. Prostitution led to three calls, BPD reported.

The highest concentration of calls for service in August were at Worcester Square, Massachusetts Avenue, East and West Springfield Street, Harrison Avenue, Public Alley 716, East Berkeley Street, West Brookline Street, Washington Street and Columbus Avenue.

Police statistics show 81 violent crimes and 255 property crimes occurred in the South End from May 1 to Aug. 24 this year.

No homicides were reported, but there were four rapes or attempted rapes, and 55 instances of aggravated assaults, per BPD statistics.

Residential burglaries spiked in July, with 11 reported, compared to three in May, two in August and none in June over that four-month period. There were six commercial burglaries over that time, BPD reported.

Sixteen robberies took place from May to late August, along with 210 larcenies and 23 instances of vehicle theft, per BPD stats.

South End residents and retailers said at a City Council hearing last Friday that businesses in Boston are being battered by shoplifting to feed the addiction that festers daily at the Mass and Cass drug market.

Randi Lathrop, a community leader and business owner, said thieves are threatening store employees and customers with lethal needles, or those that contain fentanyl, which led to the closure of a CVS in the South End.

“Goods get traded for drugs on the sidewalks around the greater Mass and Cass area,” South End resident Brian McCarter said. “It helped fuel the drug crisis around here. So it’s not shoplifting in a vacuum. It’s often fueling drug addiction.”

A week after the Community CompStat meeting focused on South End crime, the Wu administration issued a memo on Sept. 3 detailing the city’s plans to flood the Mass and Cass area with many of the 100 new police officers who graduated from the academy in August.

The additional police were deployed to the hot-spot areas of the South End, Newmarket and Nubian Square with the aim to crack down on the crime and drug use that’s spread like wildfire to other neighborhoods, city officials have said.

“Our plan combines continuous enforcement with direct pathways to divert individuals into treatment and away from the area through voluntary services, judicial diversion, and compulsory screening,” the Sept. 3 city memo states. “Our efforts target the drug use, drug dealing and congregation at the core of our public safety and quality of life challenges.”