(gentle music) (gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music ending) - The City of Peoria is funding several programs to help prevent violence, but these aren't police-related programs.

One of them is Cure Violence, a community approach to detect and interrupt potential violence.

Terry Burnside is the executive director of House of Hope Peoria, and his organization received a $500,000 grant from the Peoria City County Health Department to implement Cure Violence.

Terry, thanks for coming on.

- Thank you.

You're welcome, thanks for having me.

- What made you jump on this opportunity, which we've been looking at for decades, on how to reduce violence?

This is a new approach.

What made you wanna get into it?

- Me having been a victim of gun violence, having lost a brother, have a child who's been shot, two children actually, and have lost a host of cousins and nephews over the years due to the gun violence, that's kind of catapulted me to wanting to do something different in my community to help make a difference.

- And tell us a little bit more about your organization and how you plan to segue into this Cure Violence.

- So with the House of Hope Peoria, you know, we've been boots to the ground for quite some time.

I got involved in this kind of work probably, oh my God, 10, 12 years ago seeing what they're doing in larger cities, mainly in the Chicago area, have a huge impact on some of the initiatives that they're promoting to make a difference in the community.

And I just saw the need in our city, and I got more involved in it.

Several years ago, I was a part of PCAV, I was chair of that organization for quite some time.

I loved what they were doing, I'm leading in the mission and the vision, and I got involved with that.

Even after transitioning out from that, I just felt the need to keep on doing what we were doing and launch our own initiatives.

- And how do you think Cure Violence is gonna be different from things that the city has tried in the past, whether it be increasing the police force or putting up more cameras, better lighting?

How's this gonna be different?

- Great question.

What I know and understand, it's like we have less than 1% of our city's population that's driving 90% of the violence.

There's been a lot of great initiatives put forth in community-based organizations, after-school programs, and that's great.

You know, in these issues, we need all hands on deck.

So my approach is a little different, just to be frank about it, we know the shooters aren't in schools, we know that the shooters aren't in community centers, so my approach is go to the streets, meet 'em in the streets where they are.

Having a great pulse on our city and knowing and understand the demographics, and having great relationships with great people, and being what I identify as a credible messenger.

A credible messenger is a individual who has a great rapport and has a relationship with a lot of the individuals in the community.

And what we kind of been doing, we learned probably more on the front end about the violence and so we are able to address it and kind of gravitate to the areas that we know that the buzz is.

- The term violence interrupters is an interesting one.

- Yes.

- And you described a little bit right there about these people who are gonna hit the ground running, so to speak.

It sounds potentially scary.

Tell us a little bit more, again, about these people that you're trying to recruit and have you recruited anyone so far?

- Yes, we've been doing a lot of the vetting already with some individuals I know who have great footprints in the community.

A lot of the guys who maybe identified as, who are just as impacted and have a good rapport, like the individuals who may be drawn to violence, so a lot of our approach is to build those relationships with those individuals.

Just say, for instance, when we know and understand the individuals who are maybe promoting or doing a lot of violence in the community, they all have influencers.

And so what I've learned to do, if we have an individual with Little Johnny and Little Mikey, I begin to do my little research on Little Johnny and Little Mikey.

And then, I know that they maybe belong to a different group or organization in the community.

Once I've identified them and see who they're attached to, I reach out to, I know and understand, who some of their influencers are.

When I identify the influencers, we have closed-door meetings.

We'll bring Little Mikey and Little Johnny to the table and we kind of see what some of the issues are, what's driving the violence, why are you guys at odds with one another?

What are you beefing about?

And 9 times out of 10 is so minute even as a social media post, just little minute things like that, and they just have a tendency to escalate and get out of pocket.

And here again, when you bring the influencers into the room, there's a different mindset because that's who they look up to.

And once we have been able to diffuse or de-escalate certain situations that way, and after they leave, and I tell the influencers, "Now, Little Mikey and Little Johnny, they're off the hook.

If something else goes on, I'm coming to see you.

You guys are the ones who we agreed to call a truce, wave a peace flag.

But then if it continues to boil over and spew over into the community, obviously you don't have that great of an influence after all."

But it has worked.

We showed that it worked in 2017.

I remember having a conversation with law enforcement.

What we were doing, we were having the backroom meetings with these individuals and their influencers.

I recall in 2017, we did not have one, I don't like saying gang, one group-related shooting in the City of Peoria.

Yes, we had some interpersonal beefs, but no group-related shootings in 2017.

Not one.

- Interesting.

How is your relationship with the police?

Are you working with them on this or are they kind of hands off?

- Yes, I mean, it's a partnership.

We're working with them.

We communicate with them.

It's just a partnership.

You know, my thing is this, when we go to a crime scene, you know, we get dispatched the area, like they get dispatched the area based off of relationships in the community.

I don't get the calls that the police get, but because the relationship I have with citizens, they may call me and say, "This is going on."

We'll meet them.

They do what they do on one side of the tape, we do what we do on the other side of the tape.

This is how we de-escalate situations, stop the retaliation on the front end.

So it has definitely been a communication thing with law enforcement and us, and, in my opinion, we have a great rapport.

- That's good.

So will you try and, you know, you wanna interrupt to prevent a crime, but if you hear a crime has happened that could be a beef between two people, will you go after the fact to try and like track them down or track down their influencers and see if you can help?

- Yes, again, we learn a lot more on the front end, just as it begins to brew, get it before it gets stirred up and before it escalates, we identify the players and we approach them.

And once we identify them, then we reach out to the influencers, you know, and prayerfully, it works together where we can come and have that meeting, that backroom meeting, and see how we can de-escalate the situation before it gets out of hand.

- So it sounds like it's more of, you know, finding people, like you said, that have a beef as opposed to finding someone maybe that just has a tendency to commit crimes, random crimes, not necessarily against people, but maybe car theft, burglary, whatever.

Is that the case?

Or it's a little bit of both?

- It it pretty much a combination of both, in my opinion.

Yes, sir, combination of both.

- And the people that you're trying to recruit for interrupters, are you still looking for more people?

- Yes.

Yes, sir.

I've interviewed and vetted quite a bit, but even Cure Violence, they're a part of it.

So there is a community effort where we have law enforcement, we have someone from the community, the health department, they're gonna be on this hiring panel as well.

So plus or minus the people I have already interviewed, they still gotta go through that vetting process even with this hiring panel.

- Is there a worry maybe that you have someone that you think is on the inside and might do a good job, but maybe they're not entirely on the up and up or maybe they're a little bit still in that negative life?

- I mean, to your point, Mr. Welp, that's one thing we're not gonna tolerate.

You're not gonna be able to straddle the fence and come on our team.

We're not gonna do that.

So we wanna make sure that people aren't involved in negative or criminal activity.

That's not a plus.

One thing that we did have to put together was a hiring policy for returning citizens or say convicted felons.

So that was a very strict policy that we had to put together that we had, we're actually going, it's real strict.

We're not gonna waiver from those guidelines.

It's a great policy and it's been working very well.

- Okay, the grant that you got from the Peoria City County Health Department, tell us where a lot of that money is gonna go, 'cause they gave you a pretty big chunk of change.

- Yes, so a lot of our resources are going to, out of the 563,000 that they allocated for us, probably 70, 75% of that is going to salaries.

So we have a case manager or like a program manager, we have a site supervisor, we have two violence interrupters, and five street outreach workers, so a combination of like nine positions.

So a lot of that money is going toward those salaries and the very little programming.

So our approach is different.

We're meeting guys where they are, we're not meeting in the classroom, we're not meeting at a community center.

We're gonna meet them in the community.

So we'll be able to canvass the areas, the areas already been identified by the City of Peoria, you know, law enforcement as well.

And we're canvassing these areas to help de-escalate a lot of what's going on.

So that's the huge piece, meeting them where they are, and that's probably the majority of where that money is going.

- From your experience, even before Cure Violence, when you talk to people on the streets who may have committed crimes or you think may in the future think about committing a crime, what's the reasoning?

You talked about beefs and things like that, but are there other reasons?

Like, are they in poverty?

What are some of the reasons?

- I mean, to your point, a lot of it's gotta do with poverty.

A lot of it's got to do with a lot of the conditions, the demographics, the employment opportunities, things that may be available in other areas, they're not, and these are all driving factors and we know it all too well.

There may be, even in South Side Peoria, we have a food desert.

So it's things like that, people can't even afford the daily necessities to even live a productive and a positive life because they lack so many things in other areas that are very essential to daily living.

- In addition to looking for interrupters, I mean, if someone's interested in being an interrupter, I guess you don't want vigilante interrupters.

If someone wants to do it, they should probably come to you and your organization, because you said you do have training.

- Yes, I, myself, am a facilitator.

We have nonviolence trainings, things of that nature.

We have a lot of intense stuff, you know, it's not for everybody.

It's dangerous work for one, let me just say that, put that out there.

I've known people who have had situations in other cities and other states.

I mean, we welcome people to come.

Again, it's not for everybody, so that's why the vetting process is so crucial.

To your point, you said a while ago, there's no straddling the fence.

We're gonna have to know.

And we'll do our research to make sure you are who you say you are and you're not involved in any negativity, so we don't want that to reflect on what we're trying to do for our city.

- Speaking of other cities, we've seen Cure Violence all over the country and even overseas.

- Yes.

- Whom have you talked to?

I know Chicago is where it started.

Have you talked to folks up there to see how their experiences were?

- Yes, all hands on deck.

I've been up there, Chicago, there's several different great organizations doing a lot of great work.

A lot of the guys who have come here from Cure Violence, Mr. Demeatreas Whatley or there's a Mr. Cobe who came and they were giving presentations to Peoria, having offline conversations with them and continue to follow up with them to learn more what they're doing.

There's another gentleman that's a facilitator out of Bowling, is it Bowling?

Yes, I think it is.

- Bowling Green?

- No, Louisville, Kentucky.

He's our facilitator.

We just completed a training two days ago.

We're still doing some onboarding with Cure Violence, then that's why it's really not launched as of yet.

A lot of people are saying, "You guys got the money.

Well, what's the hold up?"

Well, we're still waiting for them to make that deposit.

But while we're waiting to do that, we are vetting individuals.

So yeah, so having those conversations in other cities, other states, it's been very helpful.

And- - I'm sorry, what have they said about their challenges and their successes in implementing the program?

- What I liked about them is, even though they have a great organization and they got a lot of the evidence-based stuff all in order, they know and they understand that they can't come from Chicago and do this work in Peoria.

It's gonna take individuals who have a footprint in these areas already, who have a great rapport in these areas already, that's gonna be the ones who have to carry out this work.

So they say, and that's why it's so important to vet certain individuals, to make sure they are who they say they are to be able to go to an area.

They say one of their vetting process looks like, they'll, Mr. Mark Welp wants to come and be a part of this organization.

So you say you're strong on the south side of Peoria.

They'll go in and canvass those areas.

They'll take Mr. Welp with them, and they'll see how the community reacts to you.

"Oh yeah, how you doing, Mr. Welp?

How you doing?"

So then if you go there, you're the same guy that say you have a good footprint in the south side, you go there and nobody acknowledged you, they don't think you'd be a great fit for that particular demographic.

- Makes sense.

What about the successes that they've seen?

Can you give some examples of things that got you excited?

- Yes, just to see the turnaround in the crime and in the violence.

And a lot of the work has been, like you said, boots to the ground, you know, and that's pretty much what we're doing here in Peoria.

The boots to the ground in the trenches, that's how they've been most effective.

It's not the trainings, it's not the backroom stuff, or the offline stuff.

It's actually the community engagement they're having with the individuals maybe identified as perpetrators.

So that's how they're moving the needle.

They're getting involved, de-escalation, conflict resolution, group mediation, that's been how they've been able to decrease the violence in their areas.

- From what you've learned, what do you do if you have an individual in Peoria who is a player, you know, people look up to them, but they just don't wanna turn that corner?

They're not interested in squashing beefs, they're not interested in being on the straight and narrow, how aggressive or not aggressive do you get with that person?

- Well, we don't wanna push 'em.

We'll approach them and maybe use them in a capacity where they want to be used.

They may be a great influencer, but they don't wanna be in the limelight.

They maybe want to help de-escalate the situation over there, but they don't wanna be in the limelight.

And I think what we'll be able to do best, and then me having a rapport long before this came, is just being that defining happy median between law enforcement and community.

What we've been doing in-house, I hope we've been able to kind of bridge that gap, create those lines of communication, develop those rapports, and build those relationships.

- This grant that you got from the City County Health Department, how long is that supposed to last?

- One year.

- One year?

- One year, they say, you know, once we got things up and running and this year maybe came to an end, you know, they'll continue to hold our hand, so to speak, and help us find other ways to help find sustainability to help maybe keep it going long after they're out of the way.

- So after one year, folks, and this has been an issue with the city council, you know, people asking them to pay for this, and I guess, after a year, people are gonna wanna know, "Hey, is this successful?"

How do you measure success with something like this?

- My personal goal for 2024, I see where we are, I see the homicides we had last year, it's a personal goal of mine, in 2024, to reduce the violent gun violence in the City of Peoria by 24%.

That's a personal goal of mine.

If you save one life, that's an accomplishment, but it's gonna take a unique effort.

It's gonna take unique individuals to do this work.

It's gonna take a lot of commitment and determination.

We can do it.

- What can people watching this program do?

You know, being outside looking in, they may not even live in Peoria, but somehow they'd like to help people in need who are looking for jobs.

What do you recommend?

- A lot of people have been reaching out to us already.

You know, unique thing I have already, I'm a general contractor by trade, and one of my huge components of what we do at the House of Hope is dealing with like workforce development.

Even aside from maybe a guy can't be a violence interrupter, maybe an individual can't be a street outreach worker, but we can find other lines of employment for them.

- You know, we talked about earlier why people do the things they do.

We've talked about poverty.

But is there a lack of jobs out there, or maybe these people they don't have a high school education, maybe they don't even have a GED, is that an issue also?

- Oh, there's a lot of layers to that onion.

When you're talking about lack of employment, when you talk about education, one of the huge factors that's going on right now is the mental health component.

There's so many underlying circumstances going on.

They're starting to really tap into it now.

And we have trauma specialists that are in-house who can help, the LCPCs who can help, and that's just a huge component.

And we're talking about generational type trauma.

So when you have an individual who are maybe acting out, it may not be the current state what's got them to where they are, there may be a past experience maybe with their families, with their moms and with their dads, and it just all rolls downhill.

It's like a domino effect.

If the parents never got any help to try to address their issues, then it trickles down to the children, it's just an ongoing issue.

But mental health is just a huge component.

- It is.

- A huge component.

- Anything we haven't talked about about Cure Violence that you think people might wanna know about or need to know about?

- It's a great idea.

When they first came, you know, me being familiar with the kind of work around the nonviolence trainings, I have taken the trainings in Chicago myself, and I've been trying to push it in Peoria and bring it back this way for quite some time.

It's not really been a challenge, but just to get people on board.

We do a thing what's called Kingian Principles Nonviolence Trainings where there are multiple principles that you learn.

Bringing about the beloved community just to get people involved and just to let them come and see it.

So we will be having invitations to come to the House of Hope to kind of see what it is.

We engage the community, it's a huge part of it.

It's a huge part of it.

So just to get their buy-in, we're willing to sit down and have the open houses and just be an open book and just show 'em how transparent we can be, and let them know what the program really entails.

- It'll be interesting to see how this works.

We hope it works for you.

I wanna have you back a year from now so we can talk about the successes and the challenges you've had, if any.

Where can people find out more information about House of Hope and, if they're interested, maybe in becoming an interrupter, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

- Just come to the building.

We're there most hours of the day, anywhere from about 9:00 to 5:00.

We're located at 514 South Shelley, and that's on the south side of Peoria at 61605.

The place is formerly known as the Common Place, directly across the street from the old Butternut Bakery.

We do have a website that we are building back up, it's House of Hope Peoria, so you can go there and find out more information about that.

- Very good, Terry Burnside with Cure Violence and House of Hope.

We wish you the best, and we hope this program works out for you and the City of Peoria.

- It will.

- Thanks very much.

- Thanks for having me.

Yes, sir.

- Our Phil Luciano spoke with a professor who studies crime prevention programs to get his take on Cure Violence.

- [Phil] Do programs like Cure Violence work?

Yes, says Dr. Jeffrey Butts.

- They're worth the investment.

They're promising programs.

They are not a magic solution.

- [Phil] Butts is a research professor for the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

He has done extensive studies of Cure Violence and similar programs.

Though some studies show a mixed bag of results in some cities, Butts says the programs can work if violence interrupters are given time to build street relationships.

- They form relationships with trust and understanding.

You don't walk into a community and immediately approach someone who's known to be involved in street violence and talk them down.

It takes a time.

And I don't know about you, but I don't really trust people until I get to know them, I know where they're coming from, and I know whether we share basic values and understandings.

- [Phil] It can be a challenge to find effective violence interrupters who typically get paid not much more than minimum wage.

- This is not the kind of job that allows you to fall asleep easily at night.

You're out in the community walking through the park at midnight looking for that young person who you know has a gun and has been talking about some conflict they're involved in.

It's not an easy job.

- [Phil] In some places, these programs have been running for as long as 15 years.

"By and large," Butts says, "they're effective."

- And when we evaluate those efforts in some neighborhoods, we did an extensive evaluation here in New York and we found in the neighborhoods that got these new programs, their decline in violence often outpaced any declines we saw in similar neighborhoods that did not get the program.

- [Phil] Butts knows of no instance where these programs made a situation worse.

In fact, the cost generally proves to make sense.

- But it's a valuable investment and it's worth it.

And the way we monetize the value of the outcomes is to say, "How many shootings were probably averted?"

So in a neighborhood that typically was having 8 to 10 shootings a year, it went down to four.

Well, that may not seem a lot, but if we prevent four shootings in a neighborhood, you think about the economic consequences of that, each shooting probably costs $300,000 in medical care, probably another $500,000 in extended medical treatment, lost wages, housing, all those consequences.

- Back here with our Phil Luciano and the professor had an interesting take on the whole Cure Violence thing.

And I know something that interested both of us were the interrupters in this process.

- And it was great to talk to him, because I'm not always like a pessimist, but I'm a realist.

And when I started reading about these programs and the violence interrupters, I'm like, "Where do you find these people?"

I mean, that's sort of the linchpin of this whole program, right?

You gotta find solid people who know the streets, they're brave, they're honest, they're at it all the time, and they don't get paid a ton of dough.

And I'm like, "Does this work?"

And the professor says that he's researched this, and it does work.

- Yeah, you definitely gotta get people who are entrenched in the streets, and you can't just get some Joe Schmo off of Monster.com.

- Right, right.

And, like, he talked about that, on one hand, you gotta find people who are brave, but, meantime, you gotta find people who aren't still attached to the life.

And that's gotta be, you know, it's almost like a '70s cop show.

You know, "Are they in, are they out?"

That kind of thing.

It's just what it seems like.

But, like he said, apparently these people are trainable, they do a good job, and the program can work.

- All right, we hope it does work, and we will follow up on that in the future.

Speaking of following up, following this, we've got "You've Gotta See This!"

- You know, it's a great episode, because not only are you're in there, I'm in there, Julie's in there, all hands on deck, but 8-Track Time Machine, which we don't promote here a lot, but I know you're a big music fan, I'm a big music fan.

What I like about this episode is you think about how albums are so perfectly done and everything, and how do they get that sound?

This segment of 8-Track Time Machine shows some of the all-time great albums where some songs were made in the craziest places, in the craziest ways.

You just can't believe it.

They're either out of their mind or they're genius.

I don't know.

- Yeah.

Are these like first take ones where they just said, "Hey, you know, that sounds good?"

- It's some of that too, and some in very, very strange places.

And I don't wanna let the cat out of the bag, but like, there's no way they recorded that song there.

Yeah, it's crazy.

- All right, very cool.

Well, we've got an all-new episode coming up in just a minute.

We thank you for watching "At Issue."

You can see us every Thursday night.

And if you miss an episode of this or "You Gotta See This!," you can also go to wtvp.org and watch all of our great content.

Have a great night.

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