Teny Gross discussed inner-city violence and offered potential solutions during a speech last night in Cabot Hall.
Gross is the executive director of the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, which is based in Providence, R.I. His speech was sponsored by the Institute for Global Leadership.
Gross talked about the institute's alternative method for combating poverty and preventing violence in distressed U.S. urban areas.
Since its establishment in 2000, the institute has trained more than 5,000 school children in Rhode Island cities such as Providence, Lincoln, Pawtucket and Cranston to use nonviolent practices.
It has also given birth to a "Street Workers Program," which provides safety, prevents retaliations after a violent crisis occurs, and mediates neighborhood conflicts. In addition, staff members help assist children who have dropped out of school by connecting them with relevant resources.
Throughout his speech, Gross spoke about what is, in his opinion, the main cause of violence.
"Elites cause violence," he said. "In the U.S., apathy causes violence. You have victims and you have perpetrators, and then you have a much larger group. And that is the bystanders, the group that I believe is responsible. ... And I see this every, every day."
According to Gross, there have been 100,000 homicides in the United States since Sept. 2001.
"I hope these numbers absolutely stagger you," he said.
He also spoke about his personal life, recounting his involvement in the "Boston Miracle" in the early 1990s.
At the time, southern Boston was experiencing what he referred to as the "crack epidemic," and there was a great deal of violence and homicide. He was working to stop this by pursuing drug dealers and mediating gang conflicts.
"Inner cities were just in mayhem: young people with a lot of firepower and a lot of death," he said.
Between 1991 and 1999, however, the city was able to successfully reduce the number of gang-related homicides.
"Philadelphia and other cities came to replicate the Boston Miracle," he said.
Shortly afterwards, Gross went to Philadelphia to observe the situation in the city's historically rough South Side. He witnessed a homicide on a street corner before he had even made it to the bad neighborhoods.
"I realized why it wasn't working," he said. "Homicide detectives are not talking to regular detectives; they don't have a gang unit; they aren't talking to narcotics, and no one is paying attention to the breakdown."
Gross said that the problem with inner-city police departments is that they often don't know what is happening right under their noses.
"They were sitting and talking the way bureaucrats do," he said. "I said, 'Give me four days and I'll give you the math of who is killing who in Philadelphia.' You cannot tackle a problem if you do not know who you are tackling."
Gross elaborated on his belief that the U.S. government must be practical in its attempts to combat poverty and prevent violence.
"We have to stop the expensive solutions [and] go back to the primitive, simple interactions with kids," he said. "We send educated people from the outside to fix the inner-city kids, but the people from these neighborhoods don't get the chance to fix themselves. ... My belief is that the best way to fix violence is to reverse the way we deal with poor kids."
For the institute, this means helping children find ways out of their destructive lifestyles, instead of just putting them in detention. It also means helping with the resolution of family conflicts and with reconnecting violent children and their families.
Gross closed with a story of violence in Providence. It involved a woman who worked at the institute and lost her son in a bus station shooting.
"We had to walk the mother and her husband to say goodbye to their dead son. This is sadly the city I live in - this is the misery I view every day," he said. "And when I see the debate on television and I read [the news], I say, 'This is not the country I see.' Street workers, police, we are the garbage cleaners of society."
