Editor’s Note: Read a longer version of this story at Interpreter OnLine, www.interpretermagazine.org.
EXPERIENCING DIVERSITY
FAITH WALKS, TALKS REDUCING YOUTH VIOLENCE
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MEMBERS OF BARNES UNITED METHODIST CHURCH in Indianapolis, some ex-offenders themselves, are walking among gang members and drug dealers in an effort to help reduce youth violence in the neighborhoods surrounding their church. In 1998, United Northwest, home to Barnes, was one of the neighborhoods leading the city in homicides, said the Rev. Charles Harrison, the church’s senior pastor. He said the violence was affecting the church. “It was creating fear. People were afraid to come into the neighborhood because of the high level of violence, gangs and drug dealers, so we were trying to respond to that,” he said. At around the same time, Harrison and a couple of other local pastors attended an event together where they heard about the Boston Miracle, in which a group of faith leaders collaborated with the city of Boston to reduce youth violence there. That initiative included a two-year period in the late 1990s with no recorded juvenile or youth homicides, Harrison said. “We were just so impressed with that, we felt like we could do something similar in Indianapolis.” Thus, Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition was born in 1999. Harrison, who serves as president of the nonprofit, said 600-member Barnes Church
COURTESY TEN POINT COALITION
BY JULIE DWYER
The Rev. Charles Harrison (third from left) takes part in weekly faith walks to help reduce youth violence in three Indianapolis neighborhoods.
was instrumental in launching the program. The passion and level of expertise in the Barnes congregation to address violence and its root causes shocked Harrison. “They really came up with the strategy that helped Ten Point go into these neighborhoods and have this kind of impact,” he said. The impact is significant. In 2016 alone, the group helped reduce homicides by 85 percent in the three high-crime neighborhoods it targets. All three neighborhoods went an entire year without a homicide among youth ages 14 to 24, Harrison said. Ten Point takes its ministry directly to the streets, reaching out to at-risk youth during weekly faith walks. Teams of five to seven people — church volunteers, faith leaders and “original gangsters” with street credibility, as Harrison refers to them — gather in the three neighborhoods five nights a
JULY • AUGUST 2017
week. As many as 25-30 people patrol each night from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. “Their role is to look for those individuals who are drug trafficking, who may be involved in robberies or gang activity. And what they’re doing is their sharing their story with the young people of the mistakes that they made in their life that led many of them to prison. ... They talk about the role that God has played in their life in helping them to turn their life around and get on the right path,” Harrison said. “We believe in more God, less violence. We see ourselves as the light of Christ in the midst of these communities that are experiencing a lot of violence, poverty, lack of quality education opportunities, broken families. Our very presence there says to people that we care. What we’re trying to do is redirect the lives of young people and put them on a pathway of success,” he said.
United Methodist Interpreter
Ten Point also partners with the business community to help at-risk youth and returning citizens find employment through training, job fairs and referrals. In 2016, about 70 percent of 1,000 referrals to Indianapolis businesses stayed on the job. Another important role of the coalition is acting as a buffer between the police department and the community to build trust and ease tensions. In April, Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition received the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award for its work in reducing crime and violence. Harrison said the honor validated the group’s work among elected officials throughout Indiana and on a national level. He is currently working with Indiana’s attorney general to expand the program to other cities in the state and is in talks with other cities about the initiative. Harrison invites other United Methodist churches looking to start a similar program in their communities to give him a call. “Every church has a uniqueness to their congregation that could allow them to have the same kind of impact that Barnes has had in our community.” Julie Dwyer is general church content editor with United Methodist Communications.