The Deeper Principles of Prevention

Many successful prevention programs are driven by deeply held moral or religious beliefs. We shouldn’t be afraid to admit that. Public policy does not get us up in the morning; our core beliefs do. It’s the principles we do not articulate every day that nonetheless motivate us to be our finest.

Do We Fear Core Values?
I think it’s time we stop being afraid to bring to light the words that quicken and move us. Funders have been known to ask faith-based programs to “get rid of the praying part” of the social services they provide, or at best to take a euphemistic approach to programs that have a religious dimension. But many times the spiritual element is a strong, if nor essential, part of what makes a drug-treatment program or a crime-prevention program work—or what sustains those who work in such programs. Why not make these core values, and the words that express them, a legitimate part of our public policy and program language?

I spent most of my life helping to design and run programs in the public policy arena. I know that success requires certain policies and practices. But policy-speaking does not capture the essence of what brings out the true magic of prevention.

Not One More Child Will Die

Policies don’t explain Matty Lawson, who lost two of her children to gang violence. As a father of two, I cannot imagine a more horrible pain. But Matty was not destroyed by her staggering grief. Instead she turned to action, saying, “I no longer have two children. I have 400 of them. Not one more child in my neighborhood will die." Why did she not fold up in her grief?

They have no reason to feel for these youth, no reason to care for them. They are not there as professional fixers or monitors, not as probation officer to client, not as assigned caseworkers. They do not come as whole persons to broken persons, perfect to imperfect.
They are there because they hurt. They are there as part of a mutual struggle to heal, to try and make sense of pain, abandonment, grief, violence and death. This is not policy. They come as wounded healers. Aren’t we all?

Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement

I began my work probably by accident, having been swept up in the civil rights movement by Martin Luther King, Jr., almost 40 years ago. The changes that stream from his work dazzle me to this day: Head Start, Job Corps and such monumental laws as the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts.

I believe that if King had begun with policy, he would have failed. But he didn’t begin there. He began with a passionate moral commitment. His framing was Exodus—escape from slavery, wandering in the desert, a view of the Promised Land, a dream of equality. Unheard of! Madness, perhaps, but the story found itself in every living room and every heart. Everyone who has lived has experienced some injustice, some pain, some desertion. The story of Exodus brought us all in.

A Glossary of Hope

So while we hold the language of policy as precious, we must be unafraid of another glossary, perhaps the oldest, lurking just beneath the surface in all of us. Let me explore some of the words and concepts that I find are helping further the cause of building communities that do not produce crime:

Claim–A New Word in the Youth Policy Lexicon

We must not simply “fix youth” or “control youth" we must communicate to youth that they are needed. Many youth feel disconnected and act on their profound loneliness. Said one juvenile murderer. “I would rather be wanted for murder than not wanted at all.” We need to focus on the opposite of disconnection: passionate involvement.

I am privileged to sit on Attorney General Janet Reno’s Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice. One of our meetings last year was held in a junior high school. One presenter, a minister, described what his church was doing: Head Start, mentoring, family counseling, after-school programs. He concluded, ‘We also go out on the streets and simply get to know the kids by name.” He said this almost, off-handedly, casually, at the end of his presentation. I was stunned. How wonderful, how powerful! For underneath the bravado of many kids we work with we find the ache of not being claimed and not being loved by anyone.

How basic, to be called by name. This evokes the God of Genesis, the God who names. It is parental. We name our kids. It is love; it is protection: “You are mine.” There is wonderful social policy and theology to be found in Isaiah: “Oh, Israel fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by name; thou art Mine.”

For those who don’t care for a biblical reference, I can give you a real-life example. Second graders in New York’s PS 163 decided they should feed the homeless who were harassing them en route to school. “Feeding them is not enough:’ said one child. “They need more than that. Let’s put love notes in the bags with the food.”

The Anguish of Loneliness

I think that too many of America’s kids are colossally lonely. One might argue that the Columbine murderers were motivated by a primordial pain, manifested in anger toward those they perceived had rejected them. They murdered the source of their pain, and then as the ultimate antidote against their pain, killed themselves. This does not in the least excuse their horrible acts, but it may help to explain them.

We must have tight school policies to curb violence. Superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, police, teens— all must be clear about their roles in preventing violence or reacting to it, should a violent incident occur. Yet I stress that sensible prevention policies must go beyond the incident to reach out to the excluded.

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