Today, Explained - Paying ex-gang members to stop shootings

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

Policymakers across the country are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on “violence interruptor” programs to try to stop shootings before they happen. WBEZ’s Patrick Smith spent a year with some Chicago-based interruptors for the podcast “Motive.” This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether you're out there in the streets protesting police yelling ACAB or driving a lifted truck with a thin blue line American flag waving off the side, one thing we can all agree on is policing alone cannot prevent all the gun violence in this country. Policing can't stop all the mass shootings. Policing can't stop a guy from opening fire on a kid who he thinks is trying to steal his car. And policing certainly can't stop all the gang violence we see in American cities. But maybe violence interrupters can help with at least that last one. I think a really good example of how this works starts with a guy named Sorenzo Strong. He goes by Fats. He's a former gang member and drug dealer. He's working the same streets that he used to gangbang on, that he used to sell drugs on.

Ahead on Today Explained, WBEZ Chicago's Patrick Smith spent a year reporting on Fats and his coworkers trying to figure out if violence interrupters can scale up enough to make a difference.

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So make the most of this football season and download FanDuel today. 19-plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Today, today, explain. I am Patrick Smith. I'm a criminal justice reporter at WBEZ Chicago. Okay, so let's hear about these violence interrupters. Where do you want to start the story that you're here to tell us? I think I want to start with what this looks like when it's working.

And I think a really good example of how this works starts with a guy named Sorenzo Strong. He goes by Fats. Fats! How you doing, man? Put that on, fuck. I'll be right back. Yeah, alright. He's a heavyset guy, as you might have guessed from the nickname. He's a former gang member and drug dealer.

Nowadays, he's left that life to be a violence interrupter or outreach worker. He's working the same streets that he used to gangbang on, that he used to sell drugs on. We're down at Rockwell. It used to be a project that has been torn down and rebuilt, but everybody still comes back down here to hang out. So you heard him talking about Rockwell there. There were these huge towers. It's now been torn down, but the site where those towers used to stand, it's still the site of a lot of gang activity. And that gang activity, it happens a lot around this park. It's got this very poetic name, Park 574.

The park sits right in the center where the towers used to be, and when you go to that park, you know, it's a park in a neighborhood. When you go to that park, there's this kind of uneasy peace, and so Fats and his coworkers are there to maintain this peace. Like, they're not there saying, hey, all these groups need to sing kumbaya together. They're there to say, you guys, you know, stay in your separate corners. And if a fight breaks out, if somebody starts talking shit or something like that, we're going to be here to make sure it doesn't get any worse. And so anyway, I said, I was going to talk about when this works. So, so let me get to, we're at this park around 3am. These groups are all hanging

out. People have been drinking one dude from one gang that hangs out at this park he starts talking shit to another gang you know they no one's quite sure what started this altercation but he pulls out a gun and then the people he pulls out the gun on one of them pulls out a gun and shoots him huh he pointed a gun somebody, somebody don't get shot, so. So the guy who pulled out the gun, he gets shot. He isn't killed, but he's wounded. And the people who shot him, they go to the truck of this other guy, one of the guy who got shots, one of his friends,

and they smash the truck up, sort of like, we shot your buddy, you guys started trouble, we're here to finish it. They smash up his truck as sort of further retribution for this fight. After the shooting, they bust his windows because he burned the guy over there. So now you've got one guy in the hospital. You've got his buddy with a smashed up truck. Those two are in one gang together. And then you've got the other guys who did the shooting and the smashing. They're in another gang.

So this is a recipe for disaster. But this is your example of this working. Where does our violence interrupter, Fats, fit in? This is where he comes in. Fats is super worried about this, but he has a plan. So we were trying to get on top of it, get a handle on it before it escalate and's retaliation behind it. So Fats and his co-workers, first they go talk to the people who did the shooting and the smashing. And he's like, hey, you know, I know you guys had this fight. You shot somebody. You smashed

up a truck. We don't want any more trouble. And they're like, we're done. Basically like, listen, we took our pound of flesh. Like, we're good. So then Fats goes to the guy who got shot and his friends. And they're like, are you going to retaliate over this? I mean, you got shot. You Like, we're good. So then Fats goes to the guy who got shot and his friends. And they're like, are you going to retaliate over this? I mean, you got shot, you know, you're injured. And the guy basically is like, I'm good. I'm not going to retaliate.

You know, I realize I messed up by escalating that by pulling the gun. You know, we've all made mistakes when we're drunk and he has regret over what he did. And he says, I'm good. I'm going to leave it alone. His friends, they say they're going to leave it alone too. Wow. That sounds sort of easy. So everyone's cool? No. There's still the guy

whose truck got smashed up and he is pissed. Ah. He felt disrespected. He probably would have been like, oh, fuck them. And he could have wanted some revenge

or told them like, okay, well, we're going over there. I'm going to bust somebody's windows as well. You know what I mean? I hurt somebody, anything. So even though we've got the shooter and the person shot and they're cool, we are still looking at a potential retaliatory shooting and maybe a cycle of retaliatory shootings or other violence over this smashed up truck. And so Fats is like, this is not done yet. But he comes up with a plan.

He goes to the other gang, the gang that did the shooting, and he convinces them to pay for their rival's car repair. How much money did he want for repairing the window? I think it was like $800. But, you know, we was able to talk and, you know, some guys came up with money. Everybody pitched in, and he got more than what he even asked for. So the other organization, not the guy who got his window smashed, it was the other organization that pooled the money together?

Yeah. So for, like, 800 bucks, he was able to prevent a potential summertime-long gun war here. So this is the sort of ideal of violence interruption? he was able to prevent a potential summertime-long gun war here. So this is the sort of ideal of violence interruption? Yeah, that is violence interruption working at its best. The two groups involved in this conflict, they're not going to cooperate with police, and they don't want anyone to be arrested over this.

And so the police are not going to be able to broker this kind of peace. The courts would never be like, all right, you shot somebody. Just give 800 bucks to fix a car window and it's over. But that's what the people actually on the ground wanted. And that's what prevented the cycle of shootings that Fats was so worried about. Tell me more about Fats. Like, is this his job or does he have a day job? No, this is his day job.

He gets paid for 40 hours a week to do this work. He definitely works more than 40 hours a week having spent time with him. And he is a former gang member, as I mentioned. And when we talk about workers like Fats, his coworkers, almost all of them are former gang members or formerly incarcerated people who are now using their experience, using their community connections to do a couple things. One is intervening gang conflicts after a shooting or after a fight to try and prevent more shootings like we just heard about, like we were just talking about. And then some of the workers, they help victims of gun violence. Hearing you tell that story, Patrick, it occurs to me that, you know, when we watch like The Wire or whatever police procedural that is far more contemporary than The Wire.

You know, police work can seem dramatic and epic and exciting. And what you're talking about is just like a guy in the neighborhood talking to a bunch of guys in the neighborhood, which would make for far less entertaining a TV show, but is sort of really effective on a small personal level. Right. And what really struck me during the months doing this reporting show, but is sort of really effective on a small personal level. Right. And what really struck me during the months doing this reporting was how much of the violence is about petty personal beefs. Now, gang and clique allegiances, they drive a lot of this, these rivalries and allegiances. But what the shootings are actually about are about stuff like smashed up windows or a stolen chain or, you know, a romantic relationship

or something like that. They're not about, you're talking about the wire, they're not about drug turf. They're not about, you know, making money. You know, I talked about that torn down public housing project. When the gangs controlled those towers, they sold drugs out of them. There was big money to be made. But now nobody's making money there anymore. Nobody really lives there. Here's how Ceci Manion put it. She's a violence interrupter, a former gang member that I worked with on this series. I think it's them protecting the territory. So nobody, no rivals come in and take that spot, take that space. So if you're not really making money on the block, it's still important to you to hold it? Yes. Why? That's your hood. That's your neighborhood. I couldn't imagine another rival gang taking over where I grew up.

Never. Huh. So it's not really new, but it is worth saying. In Chicago, at least, we don't really have any of these sort of top-down, massive gang organizations that are organized around profit. Instead, we have smaller groups of friends who hold each other's grudges and who commit violence over really small stuff. How long has violence prevention been around for people who are unfamiliar with it?

What's the genesis of this idea? This really like came to prominence and sort of took the form that we see it now in the 1990s. It became formalized into what we see it as today. There was a group that started here in Chicago called Ceasefire, former gang members talking to current gang members trying to mediate disputes. And is there like a new emphasis on this? Because the 90s were like 30 years ago, but you're following this for a year right now. How come? This is like having a moment right now. As Minneapolis grapples with its most violent year in decades,

city leaders hope a special partnership can break the cycle of crime. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser addressing the newest graduates of the city's violence interrupters program in a ceremony this morning. New York City's alarming spike in gun violence prompted a big investment in community groups who can help police officers with prevention and intel. There's been a big push from players nationally, starting from the early days of the Biden presidency. And in the DOJ and the Biden White House, the term of art they use is community-based violence prevention. There are programs that have demonstrated they can reduce homicides by up to 60% in urban communities.

But many of these have been badly underfunded or not funded at all of late. They started pushing this idea, committing hundreds of millions of dollars in grants for this kind of work. They actually encourage states and municipalities to use COVID relief dollars on these kinds of violence prevention programs like we're talking about here in Illinois, where I am, our state committed $250 million of COVID relief money to programs like this. Huh. In Atlanta, they committed $7.5 million. In Baltimore, it was $50 million. St. Louis, it was $5.5 million. You know, all over the country.

So there's real money behind this now, but you just named a bunch of cities that have some of the highest murder rates in the country. So this story you told about FATS preventing potentially a few more shootings sounds very effective, but is it enough? You know, I have seen firsthand, we were just talking about the impact that this kind of work can have on an individual level, preventing shootings, helping people recover after shootings, things that like should be done, that somebody has to do and nobody else is doing them. But these are anecdotes. And a lot of us have talked for a long time, like we shouldn't make policy based on anecdotes. We shouldn't be spending government money based on anecdotes. So I think it's fair to have some skepticism about this. The research here is mixed.

There's some ongoing studies here in Chicago that have found some pretty positive stuff, that these sorts of organizations find the right people. They're able to connect with people who are truly doing the shooting and being shot. It's a big accomplishment. That's a hard group to reach, as you might imagine. Yeah. And that when they do connect with those people, they reduce, at least like a study out of Northwestern found, they do reduce their likelihood of gun violence victimization. They reduce their likelihood of being arrested for gun violence.

However, the question is, you can have these impacts on an individual basis, but are you having a big, broader impact on overall violence? Because that's the goal here, obviously, is to reduce overall violence, not to just help a couple people. And I'll say here in Chicago, we've put a lot into this in recent years, and our shooting numbers are still really high. So you certainly cannot say, look, this worked. Like, this program is working great, and we reduced shootings, because we haven't. They were down in 22 compared to the year before, but we're still way up from where we were in like 2015. More with Patrick Smith in a minute on Today Explained.

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Terms and conditions do apply. Today Explained, we're still here with WBEZ's Patrick Smith, who spent a year following former gang members doing anti-violence work in Chicago. The work is called Violence Interruption. And Patrick, you were telling us in the earlier part of the show that there is money for this work and there is a priority from the Biden administration to do more of this work in cities across the country. But when you were telling me Fats' story and that, you know, this was his full-time job, I did wonder, like, who is paying them? Is he on the Chicago police's payroll? No, he is definitely not on the Chicago police payroll. In fact, Fats and his co-workers, there's this kind of weird relationship with police. Like if guys hanging out drinking on the corners, call us instead of the police. We can come in and

hey, y'all move around or things of that nature. We try and keep them from calling the police and let us handle the things ourselves. The people who do this work are like, I cannot talk to police because if I started giving information to police or being seen talking to cops, then the people I need to work with are never going to talk to me again. Like the whole point is there's a shooting and people on the ground tell Fats what group did it. Like, oh, yeah, that was this gang that hangs out at that corner. Right, because in the story you told, he knew who did the shooting and he went to them and he resolved it. If Fats starts telling the police that, then no one's going to tell him who's actually involved and he won't be able to do his job. So anyway, they are definitely not on the police

payroll. You asked who's paying them. It's mostly nonprofit groups like grants from philanthropic groups. In Chicago, there's this sort of coalition of big money groups that give to this. And then it's also that government funding that we talked about. They get money from the government as well to pay these workers to do this work. How much does being a violence interrupter pay? It feels like it could be a dangerous job. I think it definitely is a dangerous job. And if you talk to the workers, they don't feel like they get paid nearly enough for how many hours they work, how stressful their job is. The people that I've shadowed, the salaries range from like $25,000 to $40,000 a year. That is more than the median income in the impoverished neighborhoods that they work in.

It is significantly less than like what a Chicago police officer would make. And I imagine the benefits aren't as good. They are not nearly as good, and neither is the job security. I mean, I think that any listener today explained is aware that police officers have a lot of job security. The workers doing this anti-violence work, they do not. Some of them, you know, they're on salary and they feel like they're at least set for a couple of years. But many of these workers are on contracts that are like month to month or every few months because it depends on when they get a grant from the government or if they get more money

from a philanthropic organization. That's how it is determined whether or not they're going to keep paying them. So for instance, there's this guy who works with Fats named Humpty. He got out of prison recently. Humpty? Humpty and Fats. Humpty and Fats, exactly. I love it.

They are a dynamic duo. They each have contacts with different gangs in the area. They're like an important partnership to be able to work with these, to work with the gangs in their neighborhood on the west side of Chicago. So Humpty got recruited to do this work. He's really valuable because of those gang connections we just talked about. He's gung-ho about it. But he's like basically month to month. They're like, yeah, we'll have work for you next month if this grant comes in. And that's an issue because Humpty is still really connected.

I mean, that's the whole point of this. He's really connected to the streets. And he basically is like, if they fire me or if they don't renew my contract, I'm going to go back to my people that I'm close with and tell them not to work with these guys anymore. Like these guys are full of it. They're not worth trusting. And that's going to cause a real problem. And so, you know, that's an example with Humpty. But this is an issue for the workers throughout. These are people who are close enough to the streets, close enough to the work that they can touch it, which means they're always kind of on the brink of maybe going back

to what they used to do. And then they're in this situation where their pay is not great and their jobs are not secure. And it's a tenuous situation. Does that create tension between all these groups, the violence interrupters, the police, the not-for-profits paying the violence interrupters, the gangs? Or does this feel somehow harmonious? I mean, if you're talking about these violence interrupters having information the police want and being close to these gangs and being former gang members, I can imagine tension there. There is definitely tension. There's not always tension. The sort of official stance of the Chicago Police Department, as an example, is that

they appreciate the work being done by these workers. And it's helpful to, you know, basically like, hey, listen, we need all the help we can get. But there is a history of skepticism from law enforcement of this kind of work because, yeah, you're paying guys who just got out of prison you're paying guys who are still on parole some of these workers and i don't want to paint with a brush that's like oh they're all almost about to commit a crime if not for this job but some of these workers get arrested for stuff they get arrested for gun possession they get arrested for drug dealing if you're going to work with people who are right on the fringe that that means some of them are going to go back to the other side of things. And so there is a lot of skepticism among individual police officers,

among law enforcement as a whole about these workers. Like, are they, you know, and even I think from the community of sort of like, are you guys really the good guys here? And I'll say having spent time with them, I think they really are. Not like every single person, but they, for the the most part are working for the good of their communities But the skepticism is is understandable. It sounds like you think they're worth the effort It sounds like there's a number of not-for-profits operating across the country that think they're worth the effort and the president of the united states himself

Thinks they're worth the effort who needs to be convinced here Well, there are still a lot of skeptics out there about this work, and I think that skepticism is good. I mean, as I've said, I have seen these individual instances where these workers have prevented violence or helped a gun victim recover emotionally or physically. And I think that work is incredibly important, and it really can't be captured in the data. At the same time, there is a concern from people doing this work that if we don't see a big reduction in gun violence in the next two years, all this attention, all this love that they're getting right now is going to go away, and I think that is fair. I think it's fair. We should be skeptical about how we're spending our government money. We should not make policy based only on anecdotes.

I do want to say one other thing that we haven't talked about yet because we're talking about what the workers do is the workers themselves. This is work that's essentially like a jobs program for people who used to be in gangs or who have spent time in prison who would have a really hard time finding other legitimate employment. And those former gang members, those people who have been in prison before, unless we're going to say like, we're just giving up on you, like you're done. Unless we're going to say that we have to have something for them to do. We have to have a way for them to contribute to society. And this to me is a way for them to use skills that they've gained, use connections they've made to try to make their own communities better. One last story to try and illustrate that. Ceci, one of the workers we heard from, in December, two of her kids were in a car that got shot up. Like 20 bullets were shot at the car. Miraculously, they weren't hit, but it had her furious and leaning back toward her old ways.

I have a lot of anger in me right now. A lot of anger. So I try to put myself in other people's shoes of how my parents, how they're feeling, and how I calm them down by talking to them about not going out and doing something stupid. So I try to practice what I preach, and it's very hard. It's very hard. But luckily, I came home. I was tired. I was cold. I had other people around me, you know, that were there to support, make sure the kids were okay.

But I think that in my old days, if it was the other type of people around me, I would have been like, no, let's go look. Let's go look. But then my kids would have lost me because either I would have been in jail or dead. So you can hear there the way that she has changed, that doing this work and helping other parents of gun violence victims

has changed her. And just the fact that she's doing this work prevented her from going out and getting retaliation. And so you can see the impact that this has on individual lives and on a group of people that we as a society don't really think about very much. And so I think there's real value there. Patrick Smith, WBEZ Chicago. You can hear much more of Patrick's reporting in a podcast called Motive. Our show today was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Matthew Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and mixed by Paul Robert Mounsey.

I'm Sean Ramos for him. Noelle King hosts the show with me. The rest of our team includes Victoria Chamberlain, Amanda Llewellyn, Heidi Mawagdi, Halima Shah, Siona Petros, and Avishai Artsy. Afim Shapiro is our director of sound. Amina Alsadi

is our supervising producer, and we had extra help this week from Jolie Myers. We use music every week by Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld. Today Explained is distributed by WNYC. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.