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Operation Night Light
Operation Night Light is a partnership between police and probation that provides the court with a tool to enforce the terms of probation. Teams of police and probation officers together make evening visits to the homes of youthful probationers to ensure the terms of probation are being met. The project developed from a collaboration in 1992 between probation officers in the Dorchester District Court and Boston Police Officers in the Anti-Gang Violence Unit, who re-thought their mission and strategy as a consequence of their frustrations on the street. The project was recognized as both innovative and successful and pushed forward by executives in both police and probation; this, in turn, led to the establishment of Night Light as a formal partnership between the Boston Police Department and the Office of the Commissioner of Probation for Massachusetts.
Operation Night Light is now a central tactic in Boston’s multi-jurisdictional, highly collaborative strategy to deter and prevent youth gang firearm violence. More than a dozen other probation jurisdictions throughout Massachusetts have implemented similar programs. Anyone who is hired as a probation officer in Boston after March 1, 1999, is bound to do at least 20% of their work week in the community, in non-traditional hours.
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