The Interrupters

Happy Thanksgiving! A day late... I couldn’t finish this blog post because I was so sleepy - and I didn’t even eat turkey!

Have you seen The Interrupters? You should.

I watched this documentary, after having it on my “must watch” list for months, to get some inspiration for this project. I got a hearty dose. The Interrupters is about a group called Cure Violence, formerly known as Cease Fire - known as Cease Fire during the making of the film, which was mostly in 2010 (so the footage is pretty recent). Employees with Cure Violence seek to end violence among people ages 16-25 through mediation and discussion. It is an anti-violence method that has proven to work in many cases, included many shown in the film. The method is epidemiological, where Cure Violence workers target violence in its early stages, preventing it like a disease. Their official method is “Treating Violence as Infectious Disease” (cureviolence.org). This statement, by founder Gary Slutkin, sums up what Cure Violence is all about:

“Violence, much like the great infectious diseases throughout human history, has been ‘stuck’ without lasting solutions. This isn’t because we don’t care enough, or because we don’t have enough resources devoted to it—but because we have had the wrong diagnosis. This has led to ineffective or even counterproductive treatments. Like infectious diseases, violence can be understood better scientifically, and the result must be a new strategy.”

This is an extremely interesting way of looking at a social issue for anthropology students. Applying this scientific method to this social situation has yielded many accolades. The Global Journal just rated C.V. one of the top 100 non-governmental organizations in the world. The model has been replicated 18 times: in Chicago, across U.S. and throughout the world. None of this really matters though, because the results are what really counts. We are in college - we are being educated. We know youth, gang and gun violence is a problem because we read newspapers, watch television (some of us do) and work all around the city. So we see these violences (an idea we’ve become acquainted with in class) in our city and a solution seems out of reach. Well, how about this: in 2000, the organization’s first year, Cure Violence reduced shootings by 67% in West Garfield Park in Chicago. Check out this effectiveness-report here (I don’t want to blatantly plagarize, so I’ll give you the link): http://cureviolence.org/effectiveness/.

Back to the documentary itself. It’s such a winner. The message is clear: Stop killing people. This method of peace does not use a “kumbayah” approach at all - it is much more concrete and effective. Many of the Cure Violence staff have been mixed up in what they call “bad pasts,” meaning they have been in gangs, served jail time, had family members in gangs, or a mix of all of the above. This gives each of them the perspective of the issues and the leverage to negotiate peace with those who are contemplating violence.

Cure Violence staff face difficulties with law enforcement. I’ll explain these in more detail in another post. Basically the problem is with the legality of this method - law enforcement sees a problem with individual workers talking and mediating conflict among those who have broken the law, because it puts the C.V. staff in the position of knowing about crimes that may have gone under the radar. It’s disappointing, but wholly predictable. Cure Violence is not an organization that maintains the status quo, and it’s no surprise that they clash with the city. The most tense moments of the documentary are when C.V. staff have meetings with the city - not when the staff facilitate and mediate potential conflicts.

(But. BUT! The city just partnered with Cure Violence, giving them a sum of money to hire more staff and complete trainings to implement more interrupters. So the city has acknowledged that their ways work - maybe not instead of the CPD, but definitely as an addition to it.)

However, The Interrupters doesn’t end with all bright and shiny with some montage showcasing the amazing lives those featured in the film have gone on to have. The last shots are hopeful, at best, demonstrating that this fight is long and treacherous - one step forward, two steps back. The ending message is one of perspective - the same perspective the interrupters themselves lend to the situations they mediate: the road to non-violence is long and hard, and there’s no easy answer. The methods of Cure Violence are not fool-proof. And it becomes clear that every system, every structure, needs to examine this non-violent outlook to begin to eradicate structural violence that perpetrates the violence the interrupters work so hard to prevent.

I hope you watch the doc! Here’s a link to the full-length version: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/interrupters/#a.

-Lucy