By Lew Finfer, Special to The Reporter
A forum sponsored last year by the Boston Foundation and MassINC explored how, and why, young people join gangs — and why they eventually leave them.
The event focused on the experiences of Paul Joyce, who once headed the Boston Police Department’s Youth Violence Strike Force and has written a book titled, “It Started with Hats: The Life Experiences of Boston’s Founding Street Gang Members.”
Joyce interviewed 30 former gang members for his book, many of whom he had personally arrested. While they trusted him, some talked of other Boston Police officers beating them or planting evidence during arrests.
Joyce tells how the crack epidemic in American cities was partly responsible for a surge in municipal violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He notes that that period also saw a big rise in gangs here in Boston’s neighborhoods, with as many as 15 specific organizations made up of more than 450 members.
One of those members was Roy Martin, who is featured in Joyce’s book. Martin went on to run the Boston Public Health Commission’s Safe and Successful Youth Initiative, which aims to build relationships with young people through street workers who work at persuading young people to leave gang life.
“I was good student in elementary school,” Martin recalls in the book. “I was in METCO [one had to have good academics to get into METCO]. Freshman year I had an altercation….I was disaffected from my parents then and they had plenty of their own issues. I went back to a Boston high school. The first day a kid was stabbed in the eye. The second day there was a shooting outside the school. I went home with my book bag and threw the books away.”
Martin thought the money that he made selling drugs with fellow gang members made him an asset, not a liability.
“We thought we were the good guys, we helped our parents with money…I dressed better than others. Made sense to us.”
Martin and his friends were “neighborhood stars” until reality caught up with them through violence or incarceration.
“Street life is a waste, led to bad places; shot, killed, prison,” he notes.
His sentiments echoed those of many of his now-adult peers who are featured in the book, which also offers many of Joyce’s insights on how BPD officers and officials and political leaders managed the crisis.
“We were siloed at first just as police, and we had no strategic partnerships,” he said at the forum. “We learned the importance of partnerships and became better for it.
On nights in which BPD responded to multiple shootings, he said, there was “no shortage of arrests. But arrests alone is not the answer. You need police suppression….and intervention with youth and prevention and partnerships. It helped that Mayor [Thomas] Menino and Police Chief Paul Evans supported this and held office for many years.”
Larry Mayes, now a vice-president with Catholic Charities, is a former street outreach worker who led the Office of Human Services under Menino. He said that few understood the degree to which the violence of that era left people and families traumatized.
Gang violence continues, though it’s less of a problem than it was 35-40 years ago. Our youth need prevention programs, intensive outreach, and wrap-around services. Joyce’s book is a timely reminder of how far we’ve come— and how important it is that we stay focused on those efforts.
Lew Finfer is director of Massachusetts Action for Justice and a Dorchester resident.
