IN SEARCH OF LAW AND ORDER: RECLAIMING AMERICA’S KIDS PART ONE: “The Limits of Justice” NARRATION: Next on In Search of Law and Order... KEVIN: Anywhere that we go is enemy land. Ask how many guys can go to the movies without having any problems. JAMIE: Anybody could shoot you, for the wrong look you could get shot. You could get shot for wearing Nike, you could get shot for anything. BRENDA LOVE: If we don’t listen to them, they’re gonna come knocking at your door, matter of fact, they’re not gonna come knocking at your door, they’re gonna come kicking your door in. JOE CARPINETO: We had a rash of murders here. I’m talking about bam boom bam. We needed to do something BILLY STEWART: It is impossible to sell kids truth justice and the American way and have them buy it. But if you’re in their bedroom, if you’re under a streetlight, if you’re getting out of a police car, you’re a little bit more real to them. BILLY STEWART: I don’t want to see you dead. I don’t want your mother to have to bury ya. VOICE OVER: Major funding for this program has been provided by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, a project of the Open Society Institute Rapping:) Yeah, yeah, yo, they can’t stay in.....what, what yo they can’t stay in...Check it, check it They can’t stay in....what, what NARRATION: 1. When you think of a city plagued by crime Boston, Massachusetts isn’t the first to come to mind. Yeah, yo, they can’t stay in Yeah, yo, they can’t stay in My killer camp we spread like the plague, bury your money from the Feds, hollows in the head, on Psycho City dead... WILLIAM GROSS & DONALD CAISEY: Is anybody smoking weed? I smell a little weed. Laying back, sippin’ Henny, reminiscing your death.... GROSS/CAISEY: Any ID? ...officially enterprise, I see you playing but I also see the fear in your eye... GROSS/CAISEY: How many people have been murdered in this store? That own the store? How many people, how many people have been shot? KID: My aunt got murdered in this store, I ain't crying about it. GROSS/CAISEY: You ain't crying about it? Well, I've worked here since then and I'm crying about it. Cause she shouldn't have got murdered in the store. ...was get you 92, ratting on your crew, get back with a trey deuce and a high speed pursuit chase... COP: Billy, Billy, get some tape... 2D COP: Let’s go, stand it back, push it back.... NARRATION: 1b. In the late 1980’s, a flood of guns and drugs led to a sharp rise in youth killings in three of the city’s poorest districts. BILLY STEWART: Crack was probably the catalyst for the explosion of violence in the city of Boston. Crack and the profits that people derive from it. With those profits you got to have guns to protect your profits. Crack almost brought this city to its knees. We were dying around here because of it. NARRATION: 1c. The city’s response to the murders has been hailed as a national model. This is the story of how Boston tried to stop the killing, and what its efforts mean for the safety of all its citizens. BILLY STEWART: I think the homicide rate in 1990 was the catalyst for acknowledgment on all sides. Let’s see what we can do to stop the homicides, to stop the violence. Let's present a united front to the kids. If the kids are out on the street twenty deep, let's go out thirty deep, and just say stop. ...corrupted by criminology, the Feds they follow me, they try to swallow me, these hollow-tips they blaze a-rapidly, my adversaries zappin’me, I try my best to stay on my feet and getting close to my grave... NARRATION: 2. Most of the shootings happened in three neighborhoods where local gangs overlapped. Driven by fear, anger or bravado, youths shot each other in the heat of the moment. Local cops couldn’t stop them. So federal, state and city law enforcement agencies that were once rivals decided to join forces. The new coalition gave these impulsive kids with lethal weapons a stark choice: stop the violence or go to prison. BILLY STEWART: What are we here to talk about? We're here to talk about these. We're here to talk about these....all right? 747 and the Rambo special, OK? We're also here to talk about this. This is a 38 hollow tip, OK? As you can see this does not have eyes, this doesn't know where it's going it just goes where it's aimed, and if you happen to be in the way it's going to hit you... NARRATION: 3. Now justice officials present an aggressive front to a wider range of kids. Some have been suspended or expelled for carrying weapons. Others have simply been disruptive. They don’t always appreciate being threatened. BILLY STEWART: We wanna tell you what's going on now, because the rules to the game have changed. Now, the first people we're gonna introduce you to, couple of Streetworkers, Jed and Hewett. HEWETT JOYNER: Any of y'all know what the Streetworker program does? No? Alright. What they do is they use us as a sounding board. They say to me, Hewett, they say, Jed and the rest of the Streetworkers, we getting ready to hit a certain neighborhood. Our job is to go out there and tell the boys--or the girls--on the block, this is gettin’ ready to happen to you. If you don't pay attention and stop the shootings, the stabbings, the beat-downs, then the Feds are gonna come get you, and this is no joke, man. When the Feds come out, there's nothing we can do. So they're trying to give us a chance to work with you before you end up in federal prison. And when they hit your block, they can get you for something real silly, like a bullet. ROSALITA: How many years do they give you for one bullet? BILLY STEWART: 19 years 7 months for one bullet. DAVE COFFEY: You saw that record that he pulled out. If you're involved in guns and drugs, when you come to me, my job is to come after you. Do I wanna do that? Do I gain anything out of that? No. Don't ffff me. Cause I'll ffff you some day. ROSALITA: So in other words, you’re a snitch. You're like, “Oh your honor, look at what she did, ooh yeah, look at this,” “you know what I'm sayin’, bringin' up all this other stuff, in other words you a snitch, yo.” DAVE COFFEY: No, you know what it is? It's what you did. When you come to court, I didn't arrest you, I didn't bring you to court. So, OK, blame me, and that's fine... ROSALITA: Look who's running all the system, look who's running the system...there's nothing we can do, oh come on, man, we lost the war already, you know what I'm sayin', we lost the war, they took us, they got us, they got us, you know what I'm sayin, they got us, it’s all, it's all a game of color, they got us, come on... RALPH BOYD: It’s easy to say no, it’s easy to say it’s impossible, it’s easy to you can’t do it, but you know, that’s the chicken*** way out. To say that without trying. And there are a lot of people today who are alive because you are wrong. There's a new sheriff in town. Let me tell you who the sheriff is. The sheriff is Mr. Coffee, the sheriff is Mr. Whittington from the gang unit, the sheriff are ATF agents, FBI agents, DEA agents, drug control units from the Boston Police Department, street detectives, street patrol officers, all those people, the people from probation and parole, Billy Stewart—we're all working together and together we're the sheriff. NARRATION: 4. Boston criminologists believe such warnings help stop the killings. But the number of juvenile homicides also fell in many other American cities. ROGER GRAEF: The basic story of Boston is two-fold. One, the justice system managed to get its act together and agencies that never shared information, never did anything but war with each other, worked together and went after the toughest kids, but the impact of that collaboration still hasn’t reached the kids on the street. And what it shows us is the limits of justice and what else needs to be done to really improve public safety in the long term for the kids who are left behind. COREY SINKLER: The kids are scared. They see something they’ve never seen before. There’s basically a collaboration of all, all the police forces together. Uh, a lot of them feel that it’s unfair that they’re being targeted. As a young black man, you have to worry about the police, you have to worry about each other, cuz we’re the number one killers of each other. I mean, you know, they, a lot of them say, you know, the man, the man, the man, but the man doesn’t really come out here and shoot these kids, it’s them shooting each other. CAPT. DUNFORD: It isn’t that we’ve stopped having shootings. But the rate of shootings that we’ve had have decreased, our homicides have decreased. We haven’t lost a juvenile in this city to a homicide by a gun in two years COREY SINKLER: Yeah, the homicide rate may have dropped, but there are still shootings going on. The kids are just shooting each other in the butt, in the legs, um, they don’t want to get attempted murder charge, they’re really not trying to kill. They’re more trying to you know, prove a point, and, uh, they call it represent. They’re gonna represent their community cuz they got nothing else to represent. NARRATION: 5. Corey Sinkler was a child of this violent culture. A few years ago he was in federal prison for armed robbery and selling guns. Now he’s paid by the Mayor of Boston, to keep kids from getting into the kind of trouble that landed him in prison. So Corey’s office is out on the street, Intervale Street in Dorchester. COREY SINKLER (VO): When I get up to go to work, it’s almost back to you know where I used to be, like, I’m waking up to you know, to go back to hang back out on the block. If you’re hungry you’re gonna find a way to eat, you know, they’re making money the best way they can. If you grow up in a neighborhood where everybody’s drug dealing, it’s just a common way of life, you’re gonna end up being a drug dealer. You know, if you grow up where everybody’s a doctor or a lawyer, you’re gonna be a doctor or a lawyer. You know, most of the things is, I try to tell the kids, the cops probably won’t even bother you if you’re just out here selling drugs. But once they hear about the gunshots and the shootings going on, violence takes precedence over everything. And they gonna come. NARRATION: 6. In August 1996, they did come, to Intervale Street, where many youths had ignored the warnings that had muted other Boston gangs. City, state, and federal agents arrested 23 members of the group known as the Intervale Posse. LT. GARY FRENCH: One of the things we wanted to do was to send a message out to all these other gangs, that we have the resources here in the city of Boston, coupled with the federal and state resources, to take any gang down. NARRATION: 7. The crackdown took kids off the streets, but also showed the limits of such heavy intervention. With older gang members in prison, their friends and younger brothers feel vulnerable. COREY SINKLER: If you sweep a neighborhood, and you take away some of the older kids, it’s all about protection. It’s all about them self-preservation. And you know, to come to them and tell them to put down all their firearms and give them all to me when they gonna turn them into the police is crazy, cuz now I’m taking guns away from them, when all the other kids from around there got guns. ERIC: That’s the way it is. Like we being sheltered. We can’t be sheltered. Why, there’s no recreation for none of us around here. JAMIE: The closest community center is in enemy territory, all the way over there by Family Foodland, the Boy’s and Girl’s Club... COREY SINKLER: Or to Holland, or to Marshall, which is... JAMIE: To Marshall... COREY SINKLER: ...which is still a great distance. JAMIE: It's like this. I'm from Intervale. If I, like, last summer, we was walking to the, um, the clinic, know what I'm saying, enemy seen me, tried to hit me with a car. That's how it is. NARRATION: 8. The fear leads many kids to arm themselves in self defense, thus increasing the risk of violence. Every day, the school police seize a variety of guns and knives. They’re banned in school, but most are legal on the street. LT. MIKE HENNESSEY: These are the most, uh, common...they call these 007’s, we get these a lot, and, uh, the kids buy them at the corner store. The market shouldn't be allowed to sell them to the kids. We used to go down to the market and buy baseball cards and candy—well, they can buy those but they can also buy these. They cost anywhere from four to seven dollars. This is a Edwards Scissorhand type of a weapon, you know, get this off a kid, it could do a lot of damage. You know? That’s a tough one. There's all kinds of stuff, you know, like this one here...um, metallic knuckles and the blade, OK? So you can stab out and you can punch out. So this one is arrestible 'cause it's metallic knuckles, sure. ROGER GRAEF: But all the rest are legal? LT. MIKE HENNESSEY: For the most part, yeah. A lot of the kids who carry these are good kids, and they’re just, they’re feeding into the hype. Uh, and the hype is that they need something to protect themselves. KEVIN: Anywhere that we go is enemy land. Ask how many guys here can go to the movies without havin' any problems. JAMIE: Anybody could shoot you. For the wrong look you could get shot. You could get shot for wearing Nike, you could get shot for anything. VANDEL: Even if you look at them for a minute, then turn back, they could shoot you. They might want to shoot you just 'cause you're wearing the same thing as them. It's hectic out here, man. KID (OFF CAMERA): Yeah, it's war.... KEVIN: There are some kids who are so scared as to even try, to try to survive on the street. They'll rather just stay in the hallway all day ‘til their mother comes home. Say "I went to school, I went there” and their mother won't ever know until they see the report card. And sayin’ like, “Oh, ***, what—I sent you to school, you been missing 23 days?” “But, ma, it's hard out there, I'm scared, I can't go to school. You can’t protect me, you can't do this for me.” “So, so then, what you doin', you must be sellin' drugs, you must be doing that.” “No, I'm not, I'm just scared.” NARRATION: 9. In fact only a small number of youths get involved in violence, which mostly occurs after school lets out. So one of the best ways of reducing violence is to keep kids busy after school. Most schools keep quiet about their problem kids for fear of losing good pupils. But now some Boston principals take the unusual step of working with the justice system. ROSALYN BROWNE: Because of the anxiety that our kids are feeling they're beginning—even good kids—are bringing more weapons into school, so we've been confiscating on average two, three knives a day. I mean, kids just feel the need, that I, I'm safe in school, they’re not saying they’re not safe in school, it's just that you can't protect me when I'm outside. NARRATION: 10. This meeting is a radically new approach to youth violence. Every other week, a few Boston principals exchange information with prosecutors, juvenile probation officers, police and social workers. In the past, these agencies would never have dreamed of doing this. Now, they pool information to spot youngsters at serious risk. GRETCHEN GRAEF: Captain Dunford, do you wanna hit the high spots of C-11? CPT DUNFORD: John's group grabbed a guy, named uh-- grabbed one of the **** [omitted] **** [omitted]? Doin' big time business...uh, they, they watched him and watched him, watched him doing, my drug unit watched him doing his business and then, uh, grabbed him, then when they grabbed him, uh, he gave up his stash in the house. ROSALYN BROWNE: Have you or your station saturated or gone to kids’ homes that may have been discussed here? Cause I had a student come up to me today and say that him and his mother told him that the Boston Police came to his house and questioned him and, you know, questioned her and him about whether he was involved in, in drug activity, because he had been suspected of it at school. CPT DUNFORD: We do that with, uh, um, certain kids we're targeting. ROSALYN BROWNE: You know he wanted an answer like, is this happening, and I said, well, if they came to your house then it is, but I don't know where it's originating from. CPT DUNFORD: If someone is involved in an incident at the Cleveland school, within 48 hours we will be paying a home visit. NARRATION: 11. Police not only visit troublesome kids at home, they also look for them on the streets to ensure they go to school. It’s a measure of how far police in Dorchester have changed their approach. Though truancy isn’t illegal, they now see these patrols as a way to prevent crime. CECILIA FAGAN: Here’s a few right here...Where are you going to school? LYNETTE PRAILEAU: Do you go to the same school that he goes to? (Siren) LYNETTE PRAILEAU: So everyday you just go out and hang out? KID: naw, I’m trying to get into the school Echo LYNETTE PRAILEAU: You’re trying to get into a school called Echo? KID: Yeah CECILIA FAGAN: Where do you live? KID: **** [omitted] Street CECILIA FAGAN: **** [omitted] Street... LYNETTE PRAILEAU: **** [omitted] CECILIA FAGAN: How long have you lived at **** [omitted] Street? KID: Six months CECILIA FAGAN: And you haven’t enrolled in school at all in six months? KID (shakes head) CECILIA FAGAN: We’ll just inform the truancy, and they can follow up on him He’s up here for six months, he’s not going to school, what is he doing? What is he doing all day? This is where, how the crime escalates, when you get kids like this, they’re not going to school, they’re just walking around looking for trouble NARRATION: 12a. Stopping kids before they end up in prison has been a long term goal in Massachusetts . But to control them in the community, curfews and probation orders must be effective. Police officers often don’t know if someone they stop is a convicted young offender in breach of curfew or other court orders. ROGER GRAEF: I think one of the saddest parts of the criminal justice system is how little they share information just with each other. So the police are out there, not knowing who’s on probation, and who’s just come out of prison. It’s ludicrous, the closer you get to the justice system, you realize how little of a system it actually is. CAISEY/GROSS: Any ID? KID: No CAISEY/GROSS: What’s wrong? KID: Nothing CAISEY/GROSS: You like hanging out in the cold? NARRATION: 12b. So probation officer Billy Stewart took the unusual step of going on night patrol with the cops. Stewart believed that their combined knowledge and legal powers stood a better chance of reaching the kids most in danger. BILLY STEWART: These kids have been a real pain in the butt. We know that they know that we're out on the street-- we tell 'em--we're gonna be out checkin' on you, we're gonna come in, there’ll be two police officers and a probation officer, we're gonna check your curfew, you're bound by terms of probation to be in the house. Uh, and, for the most part, initially when we started the program we had maybe a 30 to 40% compliance rate and, uh, now it's up to 75-80%. You know, a lot of these kids, they needed a stone wall to run into to stop them and, uh, I think this program has been a stone wall. BILLY STEWART: How are ya? What are ya doin here? Lt. McLAUGHLIN: Mr. **** [omitted] Your friend has a boxcutter. BILLY STEWART: You came just to walk your girlfriend home? Lt. McLAUGHLIN: No, that's not what Judge Kantrowitz said, he said no. Stay away from this area. Isn't that what he told you in court? BOY: Yeah. Lt. McLAUGHLIN: Absolutely. BILLY STEWART: Right now, do you understand, I have the power to arrest you. I can feel your heart beating, I know you know that I mean what I say. Do you want to go to jail? BOY: No. BILLY STEWART: OK. Where would you prefer to be right now? BOY: My house. BILLY STEWART: Where is your house? BOY: **** [omitted] Street. BILLY STEWART: And where is that? BOY: Right next to...(unclear). BILLY STEWART: It is exactly and you are right now about a mile away from there, aren't you? BOY: Yes. BILLY STEWART: How long do you think it's going to take you to get home? BOY: Ten minutes. BILLY STEWART: Oh, I think less the way your heart's beating right now, right? BOY: Yes. BILLY STEWART: OK, so why don’t you start home. BILLY STEWART: It’s impossible to sell kids truth, justice, and the American way and have them buy it while sitting behind your desk. Because you’re not real to them, you’re just an authority figure in a shirt and tie. But if you’re in their bedroom, if you’re under a streetlight, if you’re getting out of a police car, and telling them you can’t do what you’re doing or you’re going to suffer the consequences of what you’re doing, you’re gonna have your probation revoked, you’re gonna go to jail, you’re a little bit more real to them. The police are our security. They’re there to ensure our safety. We couldn't do this without them. Uh, you know, these officers that we work with, they’re great. Tremendous. You know, six years ago it was “I have my problem, you have you, your problem, we'll solve ours, you solve yours and we'll never talk.” Well, this program has blurred the lines of responsibility now. NARRATION: 13. Police can’t search houses without a warrant, but probation officers can. Critics claim these searches violate civil rights. BILLY STEWART (VO): By virtue of the fact that an individual is on probation they’ve sacrificed a certain amount of their 4th Amendment rights. BILLY STEWART: Hi, how are ya? Is **** [omitted] home? BILLY STEWART (VO): Therefore, as a probation officer, if I have reason to believe that somebody’s in violation of their terms I can do a search. BILLY: Do you have anything that I don't wanna find? Do you have a stash in here or anything? BOY: No sir. BILLY STEWART: No sir. What do ya, you just got one joint? BOY: That's it. BILLY STEWART: OK. POLICE OFFICER to BOY: That’s to put the herb in? Bag it up? You put your herb in there? BOY: (Inaudible) COP: Billy? BILLY STEWART: Yeah? Oh no. COP: For baggin' drugs, right? BOY: It’s old, man. BILLY STEWART: This really isn't.......uh, really, isn’t good. It's not a good sign. OK? BILLY STEWART (VO): The place was just heavy marijuana smoke. I had enough reason to believe right there that he was in violation of his terms. On the other hand, realizing that he was in the bad position that he was in, it was really an opportunity for him to come into court the next day on his own. NARRATION: 14. But beyond Billy Stewart’s concern with probation violations, he has come to warn *Antwan he’s being targeted by a rival gang. BILLY STEWART: I don't wanna see you dead. I don't want you mother to have to bury you. You've been seen down where you shouldn't be. That's all we need to revoke your probation. Do you wanna stay home or do you wanna go to jail? Or do you wanna get killed? BOY: I wanna stay home, sir. BILLY: Is your mom here? BOY: Yeah, Mom! Mom! COP: She had to go pick up his grandfather. Oh, grandmother, sorry. BILLY: Oh did she? OK, Alright, OK. We’re gonna come back and talk to your mother. Alright? BOY: Yes BILLY: Have you told her what’s going on? BOY: Yeah, I told my mother. I tell my mother everything. BILLY: I’m glad you do. Ohhhhh...why does it have to be so hard sometimes, huh? BILLY STEWART: You know, I have a question. Why did mother leave? COP: She had to go pick up the grandmother. She was waiting for her. BILLY STEWART: Ah, OK. You know, I, maybe I’d stick around and find out what we all wanted, don’t you think? Sometimes? Why are you here? Why you wanna talk to him. But... COP: Maybe she'll come tomorrow. BILLY STEWART: Yeah, maybe she'll be in tomorrow. You know, that's one of the things that's always bothered me. The kids that come in for arraignment, get held on bail, come back for trial, get found guilty, get shipped to jail for a couple of years, and....no parent. Never see a parent. We've just got a car in front of us here that, uh, blew a red light. So... COP: Hi. How are ya? You missed that red light back there. MAN: Huh? What did ya say? COP: You missed that red light back there, sir. Comprende Ingles? MAN: A little, sir. COP: A little? BILLY STEWART: Un poquito? MAN: Yep. COP: The red light? MAN: The light? COP: Yeah, you didn't stop. MAN: Yeah, yeah, I know, thanks. COP: You gonna stop the next time? MAN: Tomorrow, yeah..... COP: Tomorrow you will? BILLY STEWART: You gonna... COP: OK. MAN: Thank you. BILLY STEWART: Hasta la Winnebago. (Laughter.) OK. Vaya con bye bye. Unbelievable. BILLY STEWART: Ladies, ladies, ladies. Good morning. NARRATION: 15. The next morning *Antwan didn’t show up to meet his probation officer and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Billy Stewart was not surprised. Every morning at Dorchester Court he sees the same faces time and again, because a badly overloaded justice system fails to stop his clients from offending. Judges are so busy processing cases they have little time to influence each young person who appears in THEIR court. MAN: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God. JANINE WYCHE: I do. JUDGE HANLON: OK, sit down.......just so I’ve got you on the tape. Why, why don't you tell me your memory of what happened, officer, please. JANINE WYCHE: OK, um, we was driving down Washington Street going towards Rosedale, we saw like four or five gentlemen in front of Paul's. Ten more kids come out the club, and they was arguing. So I heard the victim say “I'm not gonna to fight you, I don't want to fight you, I don't wanna fight you in front of five-o.” He turned around, looked at both of the cars and he said "*** the police" and he punched him. JUDGE HANLON: Judges all like to set terms of probation. They like to say “Young man, I want you to go finish high school,” or “I want you to get a college degree,” or “I want you to get a job, I want you to support your children, I want you to stay away from the corner of Walk and Don't Walk because you get in trouble there.” So unless you have a probation department that’s willing to enforce that, it does more harm than good, because the defendants get the sense that it doesn't mean anything and they think they've put one more over on the system. JANINE WYCHE: It's obvious that he has disregard for the law and he has no, he has no regards to the probation. I didn't even know that he had a curfew but he already broke the curfew two times and has already been arrested, so as far as I'm concerned he has no, he has no regards to the seriousness of the, uh, the charges. BILLY STEWART: Your honor, he's done time...he's already done time. Does he have an alcohol or drug problem? Uh, yeah, he probably has a minor problem. Does he have an attitude problem? Yeah. Yes, he was re-arrested, yeah, he is in a bar at night, yes, he did disrespect the police department, yes, I agree with the officer, I don't think he's got a lot of respect for anything. JUDGE HANLON: Dorchester is a village and everybody looked at the numbers of our young people that we were losing. It's devastating to look at someone in the courtroom and then know, a matter of weeks or months later, you read in the paper that he's dead. Or had him back in front of me and arraign him for a murder when I saw him already for a drug case. JUDGE HANLON: You're not walking out of this courtroom. You can't be on probation, behave the way he did with the police officer, be drinking in a bar after hours, punchin' somebody in front of the police officer and then, not the least bit intimidated, come back and have another curfew violation at two o'clock five days ago. If he wants to take 60 days on the plea I'll stay the execution on probation. DEFENSE LAWYER: (Inaudible)...second call. JUDGE HANLON: Yeah, but he stays in the courtroom. DEFENSE LAWYER: I understand. JUDGE HANLON: Well, in the long run we're gonna have to find productive employment for them. They're gonna have to get an education. I think we need to work at the schools, we need to be not putting people into literacy programs when they're 15, 16, trying to make sure they read by the time they are 8 and 9 years old, so that this real danger period when they hit 12 and they hit middle school, and all of a sudden they can't pick it up by rote or are hanging around and they're not getting that level of attention, we don't lose them then 'cause that's when I start to see them in court. NARRATION: 16. Finishing high school and getting a job are the best ways to avoid crime. Boston’s Community Academy is an alternative school that offers a fresh start for up to a hundred and forty kids. Some are sent by the court, others expelled from school. The Academy tries to instill the discipline and skills they need to succeed in mainstream schools. RICHARD WILLIAMSON: The big thing a lot of times, is just seeing the substance abuse. How that affects your ability to remember. A lot of things they struggle with, they say “Aw, I know how, I used to know how, I was good at my times tables...” “Yeah, but you been smoking too much weed and that’s what’s slowing you down.” And they begin to see that, wow, it does make a difference. And sometimes it takes a little while for them to say OK, well let me begin to actually stop smoking as much, and we’ve seen that happen. Others, it takes a little bit longer for them to actually realize that they need to change. Some of them won’t, but at least they were exposed to something in a positive environment, where they weren’t a behavioral problem and they weren’t a discipline problem. And coming from the environments, the backgrounds that they’re coming from, that’s a, an everyday thing, expecting to be kicked out, expecting to create a problem, and that’s not happening here, and sometimes I think that’s the first line of attack. JERMAINE: Um, you get more opportunities, and here they hook you up with jobs, and my old school just wasn’t kickin it, I just didn’t like that school. Over here at Community Academy, I can get my work done, go get a job, after school stuff and all that. ROGER GRAEF: So what do you want to do now? JERMAINE: Going about my career, go to college after I graduate from high school, be an X-ray technician. Whatever. ROGER GRAEF : Did you have those ideas before? JERMAINE: No, not till I came here. NARRATION: 16a. Brenda Love is the Academy’s director. She lets each student know she cares how they’re doing. BRENDA LOVE (VO): These students range from students who have thrown chairs to carried weapons to held drugs to done stabbings, to attempted murder charges, and the buzz word is disruptive. And I don't think it’s so much disruptive, as if they are crying out for someone to listen to them. A lot of these kids if you don’t listen to them, then they act out. BRENDA LOVE: How was your first day? KID: Fine BRENDA LOVE: You’re gonna handle this? KID: Mmhm BRENDA LOVE: You’re sure. OK, I’m glad to have you here. Will I see you tomorrow? KID: yeah BRENDA LOVE: What time? KID: I don’t know what time you all start BRENDA LOVE: What time are you supposed to be here? KID: 8 o’clock BRENDA LOVE: no.. KID: 7:30 BRENDA LOVE: Yeah, there you go. Now which pagers is yours? KID: This one BRENDA LOVE: OK, hold on, you gotta, I’ll give you the first three numbers and you give me the last four... 4-4-5 KID: *** [omitted]? *** [omitted]? BRENDA LOVE: No, 265... KID: *** [omitted] BRENDA LOVE: sure KID: That’s my lawyer BRENDA LOVE: OK (laughs) BRENDA LOVE: The bottom line is, that these are kids, they need some attention, they need to know how to work together, they need to know how to learn. If we don’t listen to them, they’re gonna come knocking at your door, matter of fact, they’re not gonna come knocking at your door, they’re gonna come kicking your door in. JOE CARPINETO: The problem is that they are used to that day to day survival mentality, and they see it within their families, they see it in their neighborhoods. We had a rash of murders here, I’m talking about bam boom bam, right here, that kid got blown away right out, sitting on the front porch. This cleaners right there, this cleaner, a kid got blown through the window there. This corner store here, the person just went in there and robbed and killed the person working behind, for a bag of pennies. We needed to do something. NARRATION: 17a. At the Log School, Joe Carpineto has been doing something to help families survive in Dorchester for twenty years. The Log School has now joined other community groups in a coalition to reduce violence. In the course of every Friday , hundreds of people get food for their families. Joe sees this as a form of crime prevention. Most of the juvenile killings took place in just this and two other areas of poor housing and low income. JOE CARPINETO: I mean, if you’re hungry, you get a loaf of bread, no matter what. There are people who commit crimes mainly because some people want to feed themselves. The more basic needs are being met, educational needs are being met, housing needs are being met, you develop neighborhood economies, the crime rates automatically go down. KID: Bye, Joe. NARRATION: 17b. Local economies need skilled workers, so the Log School provides special classes for kids to catch up and pass their GED, the equivalent of a high school diploma. JOE CARPINETO: Tell the man what this is. ALISHA: It’s my GED scores. JOE CARPINETO: Her Scores? Look at those scores. This is a woman who left school, why did you leave school? ALISHA: Cuz I had a baby. JOE CARPINETO: Had a baby. NARRATION: 17c. While their children are cared for, young single mothers get help with reading, writing and arithmetic. TUTOR: If you have half a pizza, and you have to split it between yourself and another person WOMAN: Am I splitting the half? TUTOR: You only have half to begin with. What is this, do this one. WOMAN: Multiply that? TUTOR: Mmhmm WOMAN: One times one equals one, two times two is four, OK, then, one fourth. JOE CARPINETO: These are our role models. These are local students. The kids see that. Pito came from New York, and he was literally chased out of New York. Came to Boston, did a lot of heavy dealing, I mean a lot of drugs, and he decided to try to do something, because, you know I don’t know, I ask him, I said, “Pito, what the hell does it take to change?” He said, “You just get tired of it, you get beat up and you want to do something.” Well he came out of GED class, he received his GED. Now he’s a chef in a restaurant. PITO: It’s just hard to beat the streets, you know, out there I could sell a dime bag in the park and make ten dollars in five minutes. Here to make that it takes a whole hour. You know, it’s competitive. But out here, nobody’s gonna touch me. Out there, I got the police, I got people ripping me off, I got junkies who will stab you for that last hit or something. It’s a whole different ball game now. I want to live, you know, I wanna live, basically. You know, I’m a lot happier than what I used to be, cuz it’s like I never really did nothing, I didn’t pay attention in school, nothing. And now I know there’s something out there me, you know, if it’s cooking, auto mechanics, something out there better than just the streets. NARRATION: 18a. Without such hope, life on the streets is ruled by guns and knives and a ready willingness to use them. Across America, homicide remains the leading cause of death among black men under twenty-five. 18b. Reverend Eugene Rivers moved his Ministry to Dorchester in the mid-eighties. He thought black leaders’ concern with civil rights caused them to neglect youth closer to home. So Rivers set out to stop violence in his neighborhood, and to change the way police treated kids. REV. EUGENE RIVERS: My relationship with the police department was not always great. I witnessed and knew of excessive force being deployed against young black men. Now, part of that was a result of a lack of appropriate black political leadership to check effectively the excessive force, uh, in a largely white police department, number one, and number two, to own the fact that there was a problem in the black community, which was unique to the black community. NARRATION: 19. At the funeral of 20-year-old Robert Odom, who died in a drive-by shooting in 1992, that problem suddenly became impossible to ignore. Twelve rival gang members dressed in black hoods entered Morningstar Baptist Church during Odom’s wake. A fight broke out, shot were fired, and one youth was stabbed nine times. REV. RIVERS: The Morningstar incident of the Spring of 1992 was the pivotal event that shook the city and the Black churches to their foundations. When those young hoodlums went into that church, and turned that church up, stabbed that boy and shot up the church, the black church got the point. They got the point that they had failed to take their message to the street, and as a consequence, the street had brought their message into the church. BILLY STEWART: People like Gene Rivers who would walk by our court, now came into the court, and sat down and talked with us, because they realized we were working with the same kids, and why butt heads, why don’t we work together? REV. RIVERS: What I wanna talk about briefly is learning the game. How many people think they’re players? How many of ya’ll think you’re players? If you watch BET and rap city, there is an image of what a player is. He’s a Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac, Biggy Smalls, Puffy Combs looking individual. Who... (laughter) NARRATION: 20. Black churches have launched a national campaign to rescue kids from the street, but they also back tough actions against those who won’t stop the violence. REV. RIVERS: We created the political context for aggressive police intervention. Without the role of the black church, we would have had a political race war in Boston. REV. RIVERS: We pray, God, that you would speak to us tonight. NARRATION: 21. Rivers reached out to the young men whose drugs and guns were terrifying the neighborhood. He offered to help them on the street and in court. He showed them another way to be a man, and Corey Sinkler took it. COREY SINKLER: I find myself at this point in time in my life at a stage where I don’t really fit in. I’m not totally out there in the street any more. I’m trying to turn my life around, I’m trying to do positive things. MAYOR MENINO: The Streetworkers, they have the most difficult job because they’re out in the neighborhoods everyday, they’re dealing with some of the worst kids they have, while they deal with some kids that just might have fallen by the wayside because of neglect at home or being misguided, and um...I will tell you that, um, I have put more on the streets than every before because they’re the contact with those kids, the Streetworker gets the confidence of those kids and then they tell then what’s going on, where the drugs are being sold, who the bad guys are...they’re our eyes and ears, and, and that’s important. COREY SINKLER: The system actually pays you. You know, I get paid from the city. So, you know, it’s hard to work with the police because sometimes they try to ask you questions that might incriminate the kids, um, then you really got to ask yourself who are you here for. NARRATION: 22. Today Corey's trying to get 16-year-old Jamal from the Intervale out of prison. Jamal’s been locked up for a month awaiting trial for armed robbery. His public defender expects Corey to help clear him. COREY SINKLER: Jamal’s like real mad 'cause it's like, you know, he didn't do this, you know, his mother's upset and she’s like, you know, they already got two of my boys in custody and this would be the third one, so...she’s trying, she’s real, she wants to get him out. She, she figures that he's the one that she can save. You know, they took away the other two that people wanna say are negative, you know let her get a chance with Jamal, you know, and try and save some of these kids, you just can't throw them all to the wolves. 'Cause there'll be another kid to replace Jamal just like, you know, they figure Jamal’s going to replace his brother, you know, there'll be another, you know, there’ll be another Jamal out there, you can't just keep locking them up. There's not enough space in the jails. BRIAN LENFEST: Especially if he didn't do it, it sends the wrong message to the community. COREY SINKLER: Definitely, definitely. COREY SINKLER: I'm a Streetworker for the city of Boston. My job is to, to meet the youth out in the street and try to counsel them and try to change their life in some, you know, positive manner. Working with Jamal, helping Jamal, uh, get, get in school, you know, getting his life together, helping him with any type of, uh, problem he's having with any of the local kids and, um, you know, just, just being there for him. BRIAN LENFEST: Is it commonplace for you to talk to people in the community? COREY SINKLER: Yes, the kids are aware that I'm not there to snitch on them or rat on them so I get some, get some information that, you know, that's normally kept amongst themselves. BRIAN LENFEST: Now, did you, uh, obtain any information about the, uh, the person who was robbed, uh, allegedly? COREY SINKLER: He sells drugs in the neighborhood and he's not supposed to, and, uh, the kids made sure that, uh he wouldn't sell drugs no more, so I guess that’s why—from what I'm hearing—that's why the actions took place BRIAN LENFEST: Could you give his honor an example of, of what, um, of what, uh, what you're doing now, uh, with Jamal. COREY SINKLER: Everybody's aware of what's going on Intervale Street and he does not wanna get caught up and he does not want to go to jail. Jamal’s one of the smarter kids, and if anybody’s, if anybody can make it up out of the situation he's been placed in it'll be Jamal because he has the brains for it, his academics, you know, once, once he's put in place in an environment where he can do his schoolwork, where he can feel safe, I, I think he'll shine. BRIAN LENFEST: No further questions. ALICIA McDONNELL: Mr. Sinkler, do you know why Jamal is on probation in this, in Dorchester currently? COREY SINKLER: I spoke with his probation officer, we really didn't go into great detail about it, but umm... ALICIA McDONNELL: Are you aware he's up for a finding for distribution of cocaine and conspiracy? COREY SINKLER: Yes I am. ALICIA McDONNELL: Um....so the individuals that you saw him with around five o'clock, uh, do you know their names? COREY SINKLER: I try to keep myself from knowing, you know, most their names—their last names—’cause I'm supposed to work with the kids and work with the courts and work with the police, and I lose all my credibility with the kids, so I basically keep to a first name basis and nick- names. ALICIA McDONNELL: Did you talk to the police about Jamal Coleman? COREY SINKLER: No, no, I haven't, they haven’t had an opportunity yet to come to me about Jamal Coleman. ALICIA McDONNELL: Have you gone to them? COREY SINKLER: I've went to an arraignment and that's about as far as it went. ALICIA McDONNELL: So even though you think that Jamal’s not involved you haven't contacted the police on his behalf? COREY SINKLER: No, I haven't. ALICIA McDONNELL: OK. I have nothing further, your honor. JUDGE KANTROWITZ: Based on the information you've given me, that the Commonwealth has given me, I'm gonna release him, uh, on his personal recognizance to his mother. Mr. Sinkler, are you going to be his, uh, his..... COREY SINKLER: I'll be his shadow, your honor. JUDGE KANTROWITZ: If he doesn't cooperate with you I want you to come right back into court, OK? Now listen, what, what's your curfew? JAMAL: Eight o’clock. JUDGE KANTROWITZ: Is that any problem, ma’am? BETSY COLEMAN: Seven. JUDGE KANTROWITZ: You understand that? You have to be at home at seven, and they'll check up on ya, you understand that? If not, it's a violation and you'll be right back before me. Violate any of the terms of, of, of your recognizance, or if you're re-arrested, OK, you're subject to being brought back into court and held without bail on this case as well as the other case, you understand that? So, uh, you know, a word, a word to the wise, you're to be a, uh, law-abiding citizen 100% of the time, and if you're not I promise you you're gonna be right back in DYS. I, I guarantee it. JAMAL & MOTHER: Thank you, thank you so much. JUDGE KANTROWITZ: Good luck to you, son JAMAL: Thank you. JUDGE KANTROWITZ: Thank you. BETSY COLEMAN: Let’s go home . COREY SINKLER: People think it's just as simple as one choice that I'm not gonna do crime no more, I'm not gonna carry a gun no more, I'm gonna stop sellin' drugs, when all the pressure's based on being bad. If it's negative it's positive in the black community. You know, it's like the badder you are, the more status you have, um, if you're out here sellin' drugs, the kids see it, and they see the fancy cars they see, you know, that you're out there every day don't have to work real hard, you got all the gold, the leather coats, your life looks great. NARRATION: 22. Like Corey, Streetworker Chops Porter has personal experience of how hard it is to keep local kids from crime. His own son just finished a five-year prison term for drug dealing. CHOPS PORTER: With my son, it was the drug thing, he saw other people with the, with the money, with the gold, with the cars, with the flashy clothes, and he got caught up in that. And, you know, it was funny because my son he was the type of guy that, even though he was making the money and things of that nature, he gave more than he consumed for himself. Whenever he made a dollar he was giving 75 cent away, either to family or to friends. You know, and he was like Robin Hood in the neighborhood...you saw him, he was always working with kids, uh, matter of fact, he was a youth worker there for a while, and uh, I think what happened was he, he got laid off, lost his job and that’s when he took the easy route to selling the drugs to try to take care of his family. That was his reason he told me, you know, he had to take care of his son and daughter and his wife. So he resorted to selling drugs. ROGER GRAEF: The crucial part about the argument about guns and crime and drugs is that saying no is not enough, they need something to say yes to. They need to have a sense of the future that is beyond the weekend. They need to see that they will get the kind of rewards, financially, emotionally, and professionally that hard work really delivers. Now in the late 20th century, that’s very hard to promise especially if the come from very poor neighborhoods where no one in their family may have been employed, where they’ve got no experience of seeing anyone get up and go to work. That’s where mentors come in, but they need to set limits, they need to have consequences if the child transgresses those limits, and that’s hard for mentors who really have a kind of general sympathy for the kids. Which is important, an important part of their work. And if we were all willing to involve ourselves in the lives of one of the kids, to teach them that there’s something better out there for them than crime, it will stop. COREY SINKLER: Let him do it, he needs some independence. There you go, work it now, you got that, work that. Keep tying it, look, yeah, he’s left handed, he’s left handed. Now look, look at this, boom, the hole’s right there. Unhuh, untie it, give me one tie before you go. NARRATION: 24. Diverting older kids from crime needs intensive consistent mentoring and the promise of a job or better education. In Boston, both are in short supply. Meanwhile Streetworkers use their longstanding relationships to reduce violence. They go into volatile situations where traditional law enforcement would only make things worse. Tonight Chops along with his colleagues Ernest and Jed are trying to settle a dispute among youths who are upset over the death of one of their comrades, Rico. He was shot in retaliation for a fistfight with a rival group. JED HRESKO: We got word there was an altercation... JAMEEL: Damn, pretty boy. CHOPS PORTER: What’s up, son? Should I smack you now or I smack you later? JAMEEL: Never. CHOPS PORTER: Huh? CHOPS PORTER: What’s up, J? JAMEEL: Chilling, man. CHOPS PORTER: I got a picture of you--I meant to tell you all--I've got some pictures of y'all, right? You remember when we was at Northeastern? JAMEEL: Mm hm. CHOPS PORTER: I got those pictures, man, that was like three years ago. You were about, you were about 50 pounds lighter and three inches shorter. You hear me J? JAMEEL: I hear you. CHOPS PORTER: What happened? They were just talking trash? JAMEEL: Over a football game, man. CHOPS PORTER: Yeah? JAMEEL: Started trouble, man. Getting sick of them niggers starting trouble like we were some little kids or something, man. CHOPS PORTER: They was gonna try to hurt you? Or they was threatening to hurt you? JAMEEL: Yeah, man, chasing me with a brick. And a shank. CHOPS PORTER: Huh? JAMEEL: They was chasing me with a brick and a shank. CHOPS PORTER: We out here now to try to squash this, man. JAMEEL: We all crew and ***, know what I'm saying? CHOPS: I know, you all boys, man.... JAMEEL: We all down with each other, you know what I’m saying? CHOPS PORTER: You ain't supposed to be beefin' with each other. JAMEEL: They tryin' to make into some old, our side against their side, man, you know what I'm saying? We ain't tryin' to hear that, man, they don’t... CHOPS PORTER: You can't keep hurtin' each other like this. It doesn't make any damn sense, man, you know? Pretty soon y'all gonna be running round here tryin' to make some babies and things. JAMEEL: Everything gonna be cool, you know what I'm saying? CHOPS PORTER: I hope....We gonna try and mediate it, man. JAMEEL: No, but, you know what I'm sayin? CHOPS PORTER: Let me say this, too, what I'm surprised at. I'm surprised at hearin' my son got a strap. JAMEEL: Yo, say, sir, I had to get it, know what I'm saying? For my safety and for their safety. CHOPS PORTER: What would have happened if all these police that I’m hearing out here, doing their job, hadda caught you with the piece? JAMEEL: Now, that was just a chance I took, know what I'm saying? CHOPS: Well, let's not try to put ourselves in situations where we have to think like that.... JAMEEL: Yeah, but.... CHOPS PORTER: Seriously, man, come on. JAMEEL: I’m chillin', Chops, straight up, I be chillin'..... CHOPS PORTER: Alright.... ERNEST HUGHES: OK, can I just say this? Rico has a lot to do with what this problem’s all about. What we need to do is go back to Rico's grave as a group and talk this over, and we need to do that soon cause that's what it's really all about. COREY SINKLER: Most of the kids I try to work with normally would carry a firearm. But what I'm trying to work with, I’m trying to teach them not to, but most of the kids would rather take the mandatory year from the police than to get shot or killed. You know it's just like a vicious cycle that just keeps going on and on and on and I try to come out here and I try to show them their choices, you know, the decisions that they have to make so that they can break that cycle. COREY SINKLER: I can get him right here to say OK OK fine I’m not going to fight no more with dude. I’m going to leave him alone but in his mind he knows, OK I’m going to leave him alone but is he going to leave me alone? You don’t know if that’s going to happen, now just because he won’t bring a gun to the fight don’t mean the next person won’t so ya’know, you come back to the whole boy scout thing, be prepared. “MANN”: Everybody gotta want to stop, not just one person. One person can change things but everybody in the general gotta be able to stop it. It’s not just, I can say alright I’m gonna stop what about the 15 other people down the block that we’re feuding with they ain’t gonna stop. It has to be everybody not just one person. Right about now it doesn’t seem like there’s a way ‘cause if there was a way it would have been solved by now. ERIC: Like we’re locked in but shut out of society. COREY SINKLER: You’ve got a ZIP code, you’ve got an address and you’ve got a skin color and that puts you at what you’re supposed to be doing at the age of seventeen. At the age of seventeen you’re gang bangin’ if you live on Intervale street, you gotta be, you’re no a good kid, you gotta be. ERIC: You keep sayin’ you’re a drug dealer, a gang banger, whatever, you keep get harassed with it, all that y’know what I’m sayin? All that they puttin’ in your head that’s what you’re gonna be cause that’s what you’re considered as anyway living in this neighborhood. They keep telling you that that pumping you head up, know what I’m sayin? KEVIN: There’s two laws. There’s the your law & there’s our law and our law to us is survival. We’re doing good, better than last year, we was counting down the number of murders that we had. Come on man, what kind of, what kind of thrill was that? It was a thrill for the peoples in the suburbs that read it damn damn the niggers are killing themselves damn one by one. That’s what they want us to do. Our race is going to be the first race that gets wiped out in the world because we already started. We got more guys out here dying than a little and the white race. Before you know it man it’s won’t be a really black race it’s gonna be just the ones who survive and the ones who are in jail are gonna be here all the rest are gonna be dead. The graveyards will fill up. They fill up the graveyard from here, the graveyards can’t take no more. NARRATION: 25. These friends blame each other for failing to prevent Rico’s death. If they can’t express their grief, it may come out as anger and lead to more killings. The Streetworkers take them to Rico’s grave hoping that the visit will help them come to terms with his loss. ERNEST HUGHES: What we need to do, we need to get some money, you know, all that money you collected, put the money together and get a small, get a plaque, you can get one of these or go get a bronze one and put a bronze one down. You know, get, put it in your own....put it down yourself or he'll be waitin' years before he get one. ANTHONY: We should have got some flowers, man, I got some dollars, man, you know.... CHRISTOPHER: I got some dollars, too... ANTHONY: I got a few dollars, man, we could have got some flowers, man, and just, man, put at least one on everybody's, man, you know what I'm sayin, man, that, that's up here, cause there’s mad people from the Point, man. Or we could say a prayer, man, just to let niggers know, man, that we feeling, man. ERNEST HUGHES: Yeah, we could do that. ANTHONY: Know what I’m saying? ERNEST HUGHES: You wanna do that now? ANTHONY: Yeah, man. ERNEST HUGHES: Yeah, yeah, let’s shake hands, let’s hold hands. Where's Chops? Chops? Who wants to lead, anybody want to say a, say a prayer? But you all knew him really well--I knew his father, I grew up with his father. Jimmy was his father, I grew up with him. His father was something else, too. But, um, I never got a chance to know him like you all did, so somebody say a, say a prayer for him. ALBERTO: Saying, that is my peeps, you know what I’m saying, I love my peeps to death, you know what I mean, even though he lived this life that everybody else trying to live, you know what I'm sayin', he was real, he made his you know what I'm sayin’, so that's why I've gotta give much respect to my peeps, I love him dearly, you know what I'm sayin? OTHERS: Yeah...amen... ALBERTO: Sad to see him go. ANTHONY: Ric, man, know what I'm sayin', every time nigger blaze up a bliss, your name came up, dog, cause we got mad love for you. Hope you're watchin' us, man, lookin' over us, man, you know what I'm sayin', makin' sure, man, that we stay together, man, 'cause we all we got. Know what I'm sayin? It's just one love, man, one thug, dog. KID 4: Yo, Ric, man, one love, man, ANTHONY: See you, man. KID 4: I know you see us, man, you probably mad, 'cause, man, we arguing amongst each other and ***. REV RIVERS: We have a generation of young black people who are drowning in the own blood. The only way that the black community can begin to address this notion of grieving the loss of a generation, is to recover a sacred understanding of human life which it’s lost. Because at the base, philosophically, of this blatant disregard for life which results in black youth killing black youth is the disintegration of an understanding of the sacredness of human life. Human life is no longer sacred... and, and...but...but it’s even deeper than that. Because It is not even just, it’s not even human life, it’s black life that is no longer sacred. You see black youth won’t kill white people, as a rule, because white life is sacred. Our self hatred is so profound in terms of what we’ve internalized that we no longer believe that black life is sacred, unlike other forms of life. It’s heavy, oh that’s deep. Our view is that we’ve now got to get kids at five, six, seven, and eight, when less damage has been done, for the most part. CHOPS PORTER: Excuse me! There's a path over here, there’s a path. REV RIVERS (VO): Poor people must fight to save themselves. Now they must do that in partnership with other sectors of society, but at the end of the day the reduction of crime and violence in the black community will be done by the black community. It will not be done—it cannot be done by the police, or the probation department. NARRATION: 26. Boston’s efforts to reduce juvenile killing have brought the city a measure of peace. But the expected rise in the teenage population over the next ten years poses a challenge. Can the city improve the lives of the kids growing up most at risk? For the actions of the next wave of teenagers are already being shaped by the way these children are treated today. CHOPS PORTER: What's the matter? What, what, what happened? What's the matter? BRENDAN: He ripped my coat. CHOPS PORTER: So you gonna, you tell....wait, wait, wait a minute. So you don't fight your cousin, you tell, you tell his mother, you tell his mother.... BRENDAN: I'm gonna stab him.... CHOPS: No, don't stab him! GIRL: He's lying. CHOPS PORTER: Come here, you tell his mother, you tell his mother and then she'll buy you another coat. You don't stab your cousin. BRENDAN: No..... CHOPS PORTER: Come on, come on, Brendan....Brendan. You don’t stab......uh-uh. Now come on. No, Brendan, no. BRENDAN: No. Get off, get off. CHOPS PORTER: I'm not going to let you fight your cousin. Let him go. Let him go, just let him go. Brendan. Y'all go get in the van. Excuse me! I said stop playing, get in the van, gentlemen and ladies, please. Now come here, let me see. We’re not gonna fight each other, it's just a coat. You don't wanna take nobody's life over a coat, man. And I know, I know your mother's gonna be mad at you, but I'll talk to your mother. Alright? Huh? OK. Come on, man. CHOPS PORTER: Come on, you’re all right. Come on, man, let’s do something with this nose, Brendan! Come on, man. You look like Muhammad Ali, anybody ever told you that, man? You're a good lookin' brother. You know, I know you're mad too, that’s why you’re crying, ‘cause you don’t be cryin'. Come on, come on, come on, man, you OK. Come on. You gonna be alright. To learn more about juvenile crime and In Search of Law and Order visit our website at www.pbs.org NARRATION: Next time on In Search of Law and Order Reporter (VO):In October four people are shot at a recreation center. Teenage gang members are blamed. GEORGE BUSH: I believe that kids under the age of 18 years old who carry a gun without adult supervision should automatically be put in a boot camp or detention center TERRI MOORE: I can’t remember when the last time was that I tried an adult. I don’t know when the last time we tried somebody over the age of twenty-one. JUAN SANCHEZ: What we seeing is more youngsters being locked up, they’re being locked up for a longer period of time, and they’re being locked up at an earlier age. GUS GARCIA: I used to believe, once a criminal, always a criminal, but now I understand you know, if you look into their lives, the past, you know, it all has to do with their families. CHARACTER UPDATES: Chops Porter is mourning the death of 16-year-old Eric Paulding, with whom he used to work. Paulding's murder in late 1997 was Boston's first youth homicide in 2 1/2 years. Boston officials have asked Corey, Chops and other Streetworkers to prevent retaliation for Paulding's death Pito Morales was arrested for selling marijuana to an undercover detective. His girlfriend has just given birth to their baby. Joe Carpineto opened a diner in Dorchester that is being run by youths between the ages of 16 and 24