Adrian Major, 36, is one of 18 “Violence Interruptors” working to stave off gang violence on city streets. Boston Police and Mayor Walsh say the outreach is paying dividends in a drop in crime. Caleb Nelson photo

As 2015 comes to a close, Boston Police and their leaders in government can point to a mixed bag of results. On the upside, overall crime is down, including the number of homicides, which fell citywide from the previous year.  Closer to home— in the B-3 police district that covers Mattapan and parts of Dorchester— the homicide rate dropped from nine in 2014 to three in 2015. But, the overall number of shooting victims increased from 36 to 42, although officials note that the figure is below the five-year average of 52.

Still, Boston Police Commissioner William Evans touts “significant reductions” in crime in 2015.

“But more importantly our arrests are down,” Evans told The Reporter at a Christmas Eve event on Bowdoin Street. “We have 15 percent less arrests than we did last year, and that shows that we’re not locking kids up to achieve our goal, so that’s what the Violence Interrupters do. That’s what the social workers do, divert kids from the criminal justice system into opportunities.”

 The Violence Interrupters program has emerged as one of the key planks in the Walsh administration’s public safety agenda. Last year, Mayor Walsh announced an expansion of the program with $3.1 million budgeted over three years to fund the staff.

 Built on the Boston Foundation’s StreetSafe Boston Initiative, which ran between 2009-2014, the Violence Interrupters work in tandem with other efforts like YouthConnect, to provide multiple layers to help youth find alternatives to violence.

 “With the Violence Interrupters, and the Streetworkers, there’s a natural synergy,” explained Andrea Perry, the executive director of YouthConnect. “We’ve been working hand in hand with the Streetworkers since our inception, and I think both realize how important it is to collaborate, and partner with each other because no one program can do it alone, and we know we’re stronger when we do it together.”

 Working on an administrative level directly with the Boston Police, YouthConnect is a program of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston that places licensed clinical social workers inside Boston Police districts to work with kids and families in need of a range of services including therapy and help finding summer employment.

 “Preventative work is really hard to evaluate, but also every one of the kids that we’re working with, and families, are working on something different,” said Perry. “So you might be in individual therapy dealing with the loss of your brother who was killed in a homicide, and somebody else might be working to find a better school setting, and what success looks like for both of those young people is going to be different,”

 YouthConnect was piloted in the Mattapan/Dorchester police station on Blue Hill Avenue in 1996. Now it works in Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, the South End, the school police unit, and the Youth Violence Strike Force.

 Dorchester native Adrian Major, 36, is one of the veteran Violence Interrupters who works with the Department of Youth and Family Services. Major worked at the Home for Little Wanderers for 13 years before becoming an assistant program director at the Department of Youth Services. Now he works full time for DYS as one of 16 Violence Interrupters working in the city’s most violent neighborhoods.

 He grew up around gangs, a witness to violence and death. His father died when he was five, and he was homeless for two years, living with friends. Major understands hopelessness, and he works to eradicate it for everyone.

 “The biggest fight I fight every day here in my community is hopelessness,” said Major, as he walked with a reporter along Dorchester Avenue near Ashmont Station. “It’s the worst disease right now. They know in their mouth how to do it, but their actions and their soul is saying, ‘I’m so hopeless why am I walking?’ I want to give hope, so my biggest seller is let me help you drive a little bit. What do you want to do? What do you want to see for yourself? I always say this: when we die we only have a tombstone, and we only get one or two sentences on that. What do you want it to be on there?”

 Along his walk, Major is repeatedly interrupted himself by passing teenagers who offer him “dap” and. He estimates he’s supported more than 100 youth in Dorchester, where he grew up. Violence Interrupters get assigned neighborhoods where they already have connections, and they reach out to start open and honest dialogues with the city’s hardest won youths.

“They’re looking to you. You’re looking to them, and you’re trying to make it ride out, and you’re trying to get them to a destination. A lot of it is in your heart, mind, body and soul, what you want to do, what you want to give them, and what do they need,” said Major.
 “We want to diminish murder if possible, and we’re not just talking about physically ending somebody’s life, we’re talking about spiritually ending somebody, physically not giving them the tools and the ability to get themselves on their feet, so we are going to stand on those principles and make sure that people feel confident and comfortable,” Major said. “I’m fighting for their dreams.”

 As an IT student working on his own Associates degree from ITT Tech, Major likens hopelessness to a computer virus. Delete the malware (hopelessness), and then you can begin updating the system software to prevent the virus from returning, he said.

 “Knowing the gangs, who the gangs are, how to get in there, and figure out who you can move, it’s chess, not checkers. Who can I get a connection with that can make a call to stop something?” He said. 

“One of the first rudimentary connections is a relationship. Without a relationship we don’t know what the truth or lie is,” Major said.
 YouthConnect gets case referrals directly from the police department, while Violence Interrupters are pre-activated.

 “If I see a fight right now, if I feel like I can stop it or help diminish it, I can do so, not breaking up the fight but seeing how my words, mouth and actions can bust it. We’re always active. We’re out and about getting to the impact players and getting them to change their thought, give them hope for something else.”

Mayor Walsh said this week that “Boston is the safest urban city in America,” but there’s still work to do, he added.  

“You’re seeing that the police are using different techniques to deescalate situations, and also we’re working on these different programs that are causing the arrests to go down, and that’s a big number. Everyone looks at the numbers of violence and crime. Violent crime is down a percentage. Homicides are down drastically, but really the number of arrests are down. That’s the number we should be focused on.”