The crux of what sets AP apart from other strategies is its trauma-informed, healing-centered Peacemaker Fellowship. AP recognizes that there are few ‘violent communities’ but rather urban gun violence is extremely concentrated in very particular places and among a small number of highly impactful people, generally in the hundreds even in the largest cities (Weisburd 2015). Thus, AP tends to recruit the 20–30 most ‘lethal’ community members from the group of a few hundred that are creating the risk of gun violence for everyone else. AP also recognizes that these same individuals are likely to not just be perpetrators but also victims of gun violence. The recruitment is done by formerly incarcerated community members who went to prison for a gun crime but have gone through their own healing processes in prison and re-entered society as both ‘wounded healers’ and credible messengers: wounded in the sense that they too have experienced traumas that contributed to their use of guns; healers in that they are working on acknowledging and addressing their traumas, and; street credible for having ‘lived that life.’ (LeBel et al. 2015). AP calls their street outreach workers Neighborhood Change Agents (NCAs). In Richmond, AP is housed in a governmental agency called the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS), while in the other cities, AP is independent of city government and functions as a community-based organization (CBO) but tends to receive some resources from the city’s budget (Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) 2019).
In each city, the clients or ‘fellows’ are suspicious of AP NCAs, often thinking they work with law enforcement or a ‘useless’ non-profit that may have let them down before. AP does not work with law enforcement, since they believe a trusting mentorship relationship must be independent from the sanctions of the criminal justice system and not connected to institutions that have a history of dehumanizing people of color (Chaney and Robertson 2013; Del Toro et al. 2019; Wolf et al. 2015). Unlike most focused deterrence, AP does not use ‘group call ins” where law enforcement and prosecutors often threaten gang members and others with severe punitive sanctions should they commit or be associated with a future gun crime (Braga et al. 2019). A significant aspect of the work of AP is building trust with the young people that have so frequently been let down or ignored by social service agencies, school systems and most adults in their lives. One AP NCA described their recruitment process in this way:
We court them. They reject us. It’s slow going. The ones that jump in the car the first or second time ain’t the ones we are after. Those acting out with guns, we see it as a cry for help. But where we are from, seeking help is seen as weak. We let them know they ain’t alone. I been there too, but spent years in prison for my mistakes. We offer care, trust and unselfish support. Something they ain’t never seen before.
Over a six-month period, AP works to build trusting relationships with the most violent and influential members of a community. If this is accomplished, the client becomes a Fellow in the Peacemaker Fellowship by working with their mentor to draft an individualized Life Management Action Plan (LifeMAP). The LifeMAP acts as both a mechanism for ensuring the fellow defines their own healing needs (i.e., ‘for them, by them’) and is the ‘social contract’ that a strong, caring, and consistent adult is willing to take a risk and believe in them. Another aspect of the Fellowship, and built into most fellow’s LifeMAP goals, is joining group learning sessions, or what AP calls ‘life-skills’ classes. These ‘classes’ are dialogues or healing circles facilitated by an NCA or a professional therapist, where groups of fellows focus on a particular topic over a series of weeks or months, and typically include discussions of internalized, institutional and systemic racism, valuing culture and the history of people of color, and identifying how institutions such as schools and banks discriminate against the poor and people of color (Augustine et al. 2018). By valuing culture and identifying sources of suffering and community trauma, the life-skills classes offer opportunities for group healing (Hardy 2013; Ginwright 2018).
The NCAs also refer their Fellows to social services, such as substance abuse, anger management and cognitive behavioral therapy. AP outreach workers create the opportunities for their fellows to access these proven approaches for addressing trauma and moving toward healing, many of which had previously been denied to most of their young clients (Austria and Petersen 2017). What differentiates AP is that the mentor will often accompany the Fellow to the service provider to ensure they receive the care and support they need.
Another key offering of the Peacemaker Fellowship is what AP calls ‘transformative travel.’ In most cases, fellows have never traveled outside their city and many rarely leave their neighborhood. Group excursions can include community service projects, taking college tours, meeting with government officials, and participating in restorative justice dialogues in other communities. Yet, in order to take advantage of the travel opportunity, the fellow must agree to travel with another fellow who happens to be one of their rivals. This interaction is frequently facilitated by groups of outreach workers, but NCAs describe how after an hour or so of being in the car together, the old rivalries begin to breakdown and “they start acting like kids again.”
Related ‘transformational’ aspects of the Fellowship are opportunities for paid internships, participating in an ‘elder circle’ of community members that are doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and others, and qualifying for ‘milestone’ financial allowance of up to $1000 a month. The fellows become milestone ‘eligible’ after committing to at least 6 months of engagement and relationship building with their mentor. Fellows are milestone allowance eligible also after their NCA mentor determines they are working on self-healing, regularly attending group life-skills classes, making progress on their LifeMAP goals, and demonstrating a commitment to peacefully resolving conflicts that may have previously been addressed using guns. The milestone allowance acts as an incentive to ‘stay the course’ and we observed that the Fellows use the allowance for basic needs, like rent, food, diapers and child care.
The AP Transformative change model is detailed in Fig. 1. The transformation aims to be both at the individual and community scales. The drivers of change are the NCA inputs, including mentorship and relationship building, as well as community conflict resolutions, interrupting gun violence and performing street outreach. The fellows are given services through the Peacemaker Fellowship, create a LifeMAP and attend group life skills classes, elder circles and qualify for travel, internships and the milestone allowance. The community transformation occurs as street-level peace is maintained, reducing in-school and other conflicts. Community anxiety, fear and stress can all be reduced as gun violence becomes de-normalized. Everyday presence of positive adult role models in the form of the NCAs help spread peaceful, anti-gun messages, while also modeling community leadership, non-violent communication and healthy conflict resolution. The results are increased community peace, reductions in gun crime, shootings and injuries, and a healthier community (Fig. 1).