Friendz N the Hood

Part 3

by Yvonne Abraham

To keep kids, streetworkers have to offer them more than just the standard role-model stuff: they have to match what the street can give them, which is plenty.

"Violence has a payoff for teenagers," says Northeastern's Jack Levin. "A gang gives them a sense of belonging, makes them feel special, important, and gives them money. And when the violence is related to the drug industry, it provides an apprenticeship in a career, and some hope."

Often, kids feel as if they have no choices beyond the street. "Two things catch them up," says Tracy Litthcut -- "a sense of belonging, then a sense of entrapment. A 15-year-old can be on a bad road, engaging in risky behavior, but most of them are frightened every day they do that." The fact that they're looking for ways out makes them good candidates for Litthcut and his streetworkers -- but the right approach is crucial.

Youth workers try an end-run around the gangs by giving kids a sense of belonging so they don't have to go to the street corners. They try to provide kids with alternatives rather than scaring them out of the life: after all, between the cops and the gangs, kids are already afraid. There may not be not much money in the community-center programs and activities for the kids, but there's none of the fear, either.

"We try to give them the resources so they don't have to sell drugs," says Hewitt Joyner, a BCC program manager. "We tell them, `If you put those talents -- those selling and accounting and organizing talents into the options I'm gonna give you -- you could really blow up.' These kids are tired of having to go down the street and prove their manhood all the time."

That's an approach Emmett Folgert uses, too. "There's no such thing as an unorganized kid," he says. "Either we organize them or the gangs organize them. We say to them, `We're competing directly with the gangs for you. If you need something to eat, come to us. If you need clothes, come to us. We can't always give you what you want, but we'll give you what you need. Don't ever go to a gang to get a hamburger. Yeah, it may be fun to steal a car, but it's even more fun to snowboard, and we can give you that.' " Indeed, amid the panic of all those "Young Black Male Menace" headlines, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that many kids commit crimes out of such simple motives as hunger or loneliness.

It's also easy to forget that solutions are sometimes simple, too. Both the Dorchester Youth Collaborative and the streetworkers put much stock in the power of the garden-variety van, for example. Passing through other neighborhoods was something youths in gang-laden areas could never take for granted at the height of the juvenile-crime crisis.

"If you provide kids with transportation, you allow them to move beyond their own neighborhoods," Litthcut explains."You've got those territorial issues," he says. "If you don't show kids the world beyond their little areas, they'd never think about taking the next step."

Part 4

Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yabraham@phx.com.