The abduction and murder of Jassy Correia, a young woman of Cape Verdean descent who grew up in Dorchester, rocked the region and our neighborhood over the last week. Correia, who leaves behind a two- year-old daughter, will be buried on Saturday after an evening wake at St. Peter’s Church on Bowdoin Street.

“We are all devastated by what happened,” said Katia DePina, Jassy Correia’s cousin, during a press conference outside of the Dorchester home of Correia’s father.

“She was a mother. She was brave. She was strong. She did not deserve this. She went out to celebrate her birthday and never returned home.”

While many details of the murder investigation have not yet been made public, Correia’s body was found in the trunk of a car driven by a 32-year-old Providence man, Louis D. Coleman III, who was the subject of an intense, multi-state manhunt. Coleman has since been charged with a federal charge of kidnapping resulting in death, which could lead to a sentence of mandatory life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.

Jassy Correia’s violent death has also triggered a fierce debate on social media and around households about “girl code”— with many questioning why Jassy’s friends didn’t ensure that she made it home safely. While these may be valid questions, they deviate from the main problem at hand: the threat of violence women face every day at the hands of male predators, hardly a new menace for our communities.

In the past two months, two 23-year-old women have been kidnapped outside of city nightclubs. The events have forced women in our community to be hyper-alert even in moments of celebration like going out to ring in a birthday.

State Rep. Liz Miranda, who represents Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods and— like Correia— is also a woman of Cape Verdean descent, said that she sees pieces of herself in Jassy Correia.

“Often even in our [women’s] deaths, we are blamed and shamed for the actions of those who harm us, said Rep. Miranda. “Our bodies feel like liabilities and often we live in constant fear of what may happen when we choose to have agency over our own bodies.”

“Every day in our country and around the world girls and women are harassed, abused, brutalized and killed for just being female,” said Rep. Miranda.

Sheena Collier, founder of The Collier Connection and a former Dorchester resident, said the online reaction blaming Correia’s friends for her death is misplaced.

“In cases of violence against women, women often struggle to have compassion for each other because often we don’t have it for ourselves,” she said. “Unfortunately, many of us have experienced some sort of violation and are often quick to assign ourselves blame because if it isn’t our fault, then what does that mean about the other people in our lives? Or what is acceptable in our culture? It is a scary thing to face.”

Aside from punishing her killer, true justice for Jassy Correia and the countless victims just like her must include shifting the old narrative of victim-blaming towards questioning the role our culture and society has played in enabling male predators to target and commit brutal attacks against young women.

Linda Wells, a Dorchester woman known as the Wellness Warrior for her work in promoting wellness and healing emphasized that, “being female isn’t criminal.”

“Women shouldn’t have to alter their behavioral patterns because men don’t have self-control,” said Wells. “Let’s pause, reflect and stop blaming women for the behavior of violent men.”

No matter what form of punishment Coleman faces, preventing future tragedies like Correia’s death lie in changing our culture, online conversations, and neighborhoods to stop thinking that women have control over being randomly attacked. We not only owe it to Jassy Correia and her mourning family and friends, but to the overall healing of our communities in an effort to end violence against women, period.

Jessicah Pierre is a resident of Dorchester.