In 2004, homicide was just the 24th leading cause of death in Massachusetts, but ranked seventh — up two spots from 2003 — in potential years of life lost, depriving victims of a total of 8083 expected years. That’s according to the state Department of Public Health’s annual death report, released this week.This is one way — and a poignant one — of viewing the toll of the state’s current surge in violence: think of 20-year-old Annalicia Perry, killed Saturday night, not just as one death but as more than 50 years of potential life taken away.
The number of homicides in the state increased 26 percent in 2004 over 2003, from 139 to 175. (These numbers differ slightly from official Department of Justice data, which uses different definitions.) The figure jumped again in 2005, to 185, according to information obtained by the Phoenix from each of the state’s district attorneys. In 2006 we are once again ahead of the previous year’s pace, based on Phoenix estimates, having passed the 100 mark earlier this month.
But it’s not just the number of killings that has sent the years of life lost to homicide up a whopping 32 percent in 2004; it’s also the victims’ ages. In 2003, Massachusetts had 55 murder victims under age 25; in 2004 it had 87, according to the death report. In fact, homicide moved up to the number-two cause of death among residents age 15 to 24, and climbed past HIV/AIDS and diabetes for potential years of life lost.
Those numbers were at least as bad in 2005, and may be worse in 2006. Of Boston’s 43 homicide victims to date, 21 were younger than 25, starting with 18-year-old Natalie Sumner, shot in Allston in January, and continuing through 19-year-old Derek Williams, shot in Dorchester back in March but finally succumbing to the injury last Saturday. At least another 21 people under age 25 have been killed elsewhere in the state this year, including 17-year-old Krista Lucianno, strangled to death in Fall River; 15-year-old Jarard Rogers, shot to death in Brockton; and 19-year-old Corey Davis, shot to death in Cambridge.
That’s a lot of potential years of life. At this rate we may reach 10,000 by year’s end.
