A new chance to stop teen violence

BOSTON'S SURGE in youth violence in the early 1990s saw the rise of unprecedented neighborhood-based leadership that dramatically reduced the city's homicide rates. Policies and programs were developed and led by extraordinary coalitions of everyday people: residents, clergy, mothers of murdered children, and, most important , teenagers themselves.

In the beginning, meetings took place in kitchens, storefronts, and public libraries, giving birth to organizations like GangPeace, Citizens For Safety, Teen Empowerment, and the Louis D. Brown Peace Curriculum. The wealth of Boston's institutional resources such as the Harvard School of Public Health, thanks to the community-minded Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Dr. Howard Spivak, were brought to bear on the ideas of young people and knowledge from the streets.

Peer leadership programs that train young people to teach violence prevention were incorporated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Prevention Center and have become a mainstay in our schools. Citizen-ed community-building efforts were welcomed into the halls of Boston Police Headquarters, such as with the Street Smarts Initiative, which worked closely with the invaluable Streetworker Program to combine GED and job readiness with repeated gun buybacks and an ongoing basketball league that brought truces by feuding gangs.

When Boston's success in reducing violence was rewarded with federal money for job training in some of the city's poorest census tracts, the Youth Opportunity Area was born, bringing together court-involved youths from the balkanized neighborhoods of Roxbury's and South Boston's housing projects for GED services, job training, and mentoring. All these efforts invested in the knowledge and leadership capabilities of those most impacted by issues of intergenerational poverty, teen pregnancy, drop-out rates, and gang violence: young people themselves.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino and former police commissioner Paul Evans wisely buttressed citizen-guided initiatives in an era that seemed to value and listen to the voices of young people.

None of the individual policies of the '90s alone led to the nationally touted "Boston Miracle," when the city saw two years without a single juvenile homicide. Instead it was this emphasis on bottom-up grass-roots leadership development, out of which a movement was born. And it was that sense of connectedness, of unity of purpose in our city, and of citizens' accessibility to the halls of power -- in addition to every GED obtained or every gang truce negotiated -- that changed the culture of violence at the street level. Young people simply know when they are being cared for, when their voices are being heard, when they have a shot at playing a role in the greater society.

This citywide non violence movement fought to continue, in spite of state and federal administrations that have not prioritized poor and working class concerns, much less the struggles of traumatized young people simply trying to live another day in impacted neighborhoods. But there is only so much that citizens can do without commitment from those who control budgets. Today the bloodshed has returned full force to Boston's streets, and cities and towns throughout Massachusetts have seen a rise in youth gang activity. Citizens in the neighborhoods most impacted by violence are as ready as they've always been to take the reins and deal with the causes. But government must once again support their energy, ideas, and efforts.

Today there is an opportunity to stop the new surge in youth violence. Today Governor Deval Patrick takes office on a platform of commitment to the grass roots. Already his appointments of people like Joan Wallace-Benjamin and Dr. Judy Ann Bigby -- people who have devoted their lives to hearing the cries of communities as well as working to reinforce communities' strengths -- show that he is following through on that commitment.

The governor's appointees surely know that changes, whether in education, law enforcement, after-school programs, job creation, or gun control, will only go so far if decreed from above, rather than owned by the citizens. The culture of civic participation must be brought back to life in Massachusetts, and must include youth voices. Neighborhood residents -- especially our most frequently ignored citizens, young people -- can tell us exactly how to turn the tables on gang violence. The first thing we can do is invite them to the table and listen.

Michael Patrick MacDonald is author of "Easter Rising" and "All Souls."