Mighty neighborly

Mighty neighborly - The Boston Globe

Joseph Porcelli was sick of learning about people getting mugged as they departed the Orange Line's Stony Brook station near his home in Jamaica Plain. So back in August 2004, the longtime DJ approached his neighbors and asked them to stand watch, every night, on the front porch.

By summer's end, he said, two things had happened: The muggings stopped, and the group wound up becoming pretty good friends.

Porcelli thought he had hit upon a connection between being social and decreasing crime. He started Neighbors for Neighbors, JP, in which nearly 1,200 residents are trying to create a better, safer community by encouraging neighbors to be, well, neighborly.