The Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) - Patrick Evans is 40 years old, has been in and out of prison six times and used to roam the streets of Chicago showing off the pistol in his waistband.
He still combs the streets, but now he’s without his gun and talks with gang members about curbing violence as part of a program called CeaseFire.
“I like to say I lived in the penitentiary and visited the streets,” Evans said. “Now I just want to help rebuild some of what I tore down.”
Evans is one of several thugs-turned-outreach workers who hit the streets in an aggressive campaign aimed at reining in street violence the same way public health groups have gone after AIDS and tuberculosis.
CeaseFire’s approach is that violence is like alcoholism or drug abuse and has become a disease that has taken on epidemic proportions. The program has 70 outreach workers, many of them ex-convicts and reformed gang members, who canvass violent neighborhoods and talk with high-risk individuals. The workers also intervene in street conflicts and mediate tense gang situations.
The goal is to change the idea that violence is an appropriate behavior and offer alternatives, from GED programs and drug counseling to steady jobs.
“To tell people they need to let the street life go, you have to have let it go yourself,” Tio Hardiman, the program’s community coordinator said. “We’re trying to change the way people think. What we’re trying to say is it’s abnormal to shoot someone. There’s nothing normal about that.”
The homicide count in Chicago has dropped significantly from last year’s nation-leading numbers. There were 393 homicides through Thursday, down 126 from the same time last year.
Although increased police efforts are responsible for much of the drop in the homicide rate, police, civic leaders and criminologists say CeaseFire has certainly helped.
“The job of the police is to catch people once they’ve crossed the line,” said Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist and director of CeaseFire. “Our job is to keep them from crossing that line in the first place.”
After Slutkin worked for 15 years on infectious diseases and epidemics, he decided to try to treat Chicago’s problem with violence like an epidemic.
He reasons that violence is nothing more than a dangerous behavior, like driving drunk or smoking. In Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods, it’s a behavior that has become normal, and that behavior has allowed violence to spread like any disease.
CeaseFire’s approach brings together community organizations such as churches, businesses and other outreach groups to form a coalition to help people and spread the word that violence won’t be tolerated. It also operates in East St. Louis, Rockford, Maywood and Aurora.
But some groups aren’t convinced the program is the right answer.
Jackie Reed, executive director of the Westside Health Authority, said CeaseFire exerts too much control over how a community deals with its problems.
“It didn’t seem as if they had the capacity to really hear from the community and give a voice to the community that would really empower us to make changes in the neighborhood,” Reed said.
However Evans, who is a new outreach worker, thinks that with time, changes will be made. He doesn’t worry about how long it will take to reach people, he’s just hopeful his efforts will curb the violence.
“If you keep pressin’ on, pressin’ on,” he said, “eventually something’s going to give.”