SOCIETY

Peace takes more

time than violence
STEPHEN ARMSTRONG berichtet, wie in verschiedenen Ländern
– mit begrenzten Mitteln, aber viel Herzblut – versucht wird, junge
Leute von Kriminalität und Gewalt abzubringen.
ADVANCED

Violence as a disease “I’d been working in the Midlands chief constable UK

Karyn McCluskey is slim and cheerful,
with bright eyes and a big smile. You’d
never expect that this woman, with
very little help, cut the murder rate in
Europe’s most violent city in half. And
she did it with not much funding but a
couple of very big ideas.
and we did three or four murders in a [(kVnstEb&l]
couple of years. I came to Strathclyde , Polizeichef(in)
and it was three or four on an average council house UK
, Sozialwohnung
weekend,” she says, still amazed. “Glas-
gow had the highest murder rate of any homicide squad
[(hQmIsaId )skwQd]
Western European city. We were solv- , Mordkommission
ing 98 per cent of the investigations,
Fotos: RobinOlimb/iStock.com; privat

McCluskey grew up in a council
house near Glasgow. She became a
nurse, then trained as a psychologist
before joining the police and work-
ing with homicide squads across the
country. In 2003, she moved back home
and joined the Strathclyde Police. She
was shocked by what she found there.
Midlands UK
but people were still dying.” , das mittelenglische
She looked at some numbers and Tiefland rund um
told her then boss, Strathclyde’s Chief Birmingham
Constable Willie Rae, that in 30 years
of policing, they’d made no differ-
ence to the number of violent crimes.
Her recommendation? Do something
different.

24 SPOTLIGHT 2020 SOCIETY

In January 2005, she established the
Strathclyde Violence Reduction Unit
(SVRU): “We had some funding but
not a huge amount. They would let us
innovate, but if we failed, it wouldn’t
cause angry headlines.”
Through her training as a nurse, Mc-
Cluskey followed new ideas from the
World Health Organization. These in-
dicated that violence should be seen as
a public health problem. US epidemiol-
ogist Gary Slutkin, who had worked in
Somalia trying to control tuberculosis
in refugee camps, found that messen-
gers people could believe in were es-
sential for lasting change. “The most
effective people in changing behav-
iours around HIV/AIDS have been sex
workers,” he explains. “Teaching moth-
ers about breastfeeding is best done by
other mothers.”
Looking for a cure —
Scotland and the US
In the late 1990s, Slutkin returned to
Chicago, one of America’s most violent
cities, and realized that violence fits the
definition of a contagious disease — one
violent act often leads to another — and
that people copy each other’s behaviour
until violence becomes normal. It grows
like a virus unless you can stop it early.
He created Cure Violence in 2000,
an organization that uses epidemiolo-
gy mapping to find violent areas, hires
people in the community who have
credibility and trains them to cool peo-
ple down. Such “interrupters” are often
ex-gang members or former offenders.
Slutkin launched the model in West
Garfield, Chicago’s most violent com-
munity at the time. Shootings there fell
by 67 per cent in its first year.
McCluskey and Slutkin both be-
lieve it takes a generation to treat this
disease. The SVRU launched in 2008
informed Glasgow’s gangs that the
unit was going to provide them with a
way out but would come down hard on
anyone who rejected it. “One of the key
reasons violence survives and spreads
is poverty and hopelessness,” she ex-
plains. “If we didn’t treat that, change
wouldn’t happen.”
SOCIETY
In the early days, the plan nearly col-
lapsed. Local businesses contacted
by SVRU agreed to help ex-offenders
find work, but the financial crash put
an end to that. SVRU’s Inspector Iain
Murray went to LA to study Homeboy
Industries, a catering company that
provides former gang members with
employment for a year, mentoring,
psychotherapy and other support (see
Spotlight 6/20).
Strathclyde Police set up Braveheart
Industries, the first-ever police-run
employment programme. Murray took
six of the toughest repeat offenders he
could find and opened an upmarket
food shop in an Airstream trailer in
Glasgow’s wealthy West End. They
were given help to find a home and
adapt to normal life, but had to be clean
of drugs and alcohol and ready to work.
By the end of 2018, five such social en-
terprises were paying for themselves
and not costing the public a penny.
WORKING FOR CHANGE
And yet the heart of the problem (from the top) Karyn
was only just coming into focus. To un- McCluskey (Scotland), Gary
derstand the spread of violence, it was Slutkin (United States),
important to know that kids suffering Bridget Hannah (South Africa)
and Lauri McCusker (Northern
attachment issues or early years of trau-
Ireland)
ma are, in effect, patient zero. They’ve
always known violence as a way of life
or used it as a key element in relation-
ships.
“When I look at a class of five-year-
olds, none of them wants to grow up to abuse [E(bju:z] exposure
be a drug addict or a sex worker or an , Missbrauch , Ausgesetztsein
armed robber — we lose them along the Airstream trailer headline
way,” says McCluskey. “They’re your , silbrig-glänzender , Schlagzeile
Aluminium-Wohnwagen,
prison population in 15 years’ time.” impoverished
-Imbissanhänger
, verarmt
attachment issue
Looking for a cure — , Bindungsstörung
mapping
South Africa , Kartierung, Zuordnung
breastfeeding
In South Africa’s Western Cape prov- , Stillen
NGO (non-governmen-
ince, township areas are plagued by tal organization)
come down hard on sb. , nichtstaatliche Orga-
high unemployment and extreme pov- , bei jmdm. hart durch- nisation
erty. Black youth from impoverished ar- greifen
offender
eas fear for their safety outside school, contagious , Straftäter(in)
making it hard for them to concentrate [kEnt(teIdZEs]
ansteckend plague [pleIg]
on their studies. Over time, exposure ,
, heimsuchen, plagen
to violence leads to drug and alcohol credibility
, Glaubwürdigkeit
township area S.Afr.
abuse, mental health problems, risky , von Farbigen bewohn-
sexual behaviour and criminality. In drug addict te Siedlung
2016, the local government and a num- , Drogensüchtige(r)
upmarket UK
ber of NGOs launched a project called , gehoben
SPOTLIGHT 2020 25
 After School Game Changer (now re-
named the After School Programme)
to tackle one part of this problem.
Bridget Hannah, from the Depart-
ment of Cultural Affairs and Sport,
manages the After School Programme
Office, which works to coordinate,
consolidate and expand the provision
of quality After School Programmes for
under-resourced learners. After School
Programmes (ASPs) are designed to
keep kids in a safe space and protect
them from violence. “It’s a controver-
sial term, but we’re building positive
gangs — recreating the security and
camaraderie that gangs might offer a
young person, but in a positive space,”
she explains.
ASPs have four strands: sports,
arts, academic ability and life skills,
although, as Hannah says, every pro-
gramme has life skills at the core: “No
one wants to come to a life skills pro-
gramme — they want to bash around a
ball,” she says. Her job is to set bench-
marks for all the after-school providers
and coordinate schedules so organiza-
tions can track a kid who may have mar-
tial arts on Monday, choir on Tuesday
and soccer on Wednesday. “We support
timetabling for a sense of routine and
stability,” explains Hannah.
Since the Programme Office was
launched, they have been able to track
170,000 learners from no and low-fee
schools that have registered for After
School Programmes, and 40 per cent
have attended regularly and consist-
ently — giving more than 84,000 kids
a safe environment where their emo-
tional, social, physical and academic
skills have been strengthened. It’s ear-
ly days, but Hannah has seen a decline
in destructive, risk-taking behaviours
among young people.
Looking for a cure —
Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, education is at the
heart of an ambitious programme to
bring peace to the Catholic and Protes-
tant communities, who — in the words
of the programme’s founder, Lauri Mc-
Cusker — have been killing each other
26 SPOTLIGHT 2020
for years. “It starts young,” he explains.
“In Northern Ireland, 95 per cent of kids
go to either a Catholic or a Protestant
school and the schools work in parallel
universes.”
McCusker grew up Catholic in Fer-
managh, a rural county with small
farming villages, each with two small,
underfinanced primary schools — one
for each community. Using money
from a US charity, he employed spe-
cialist teachers of French, music, maths
Different countries, similar
and science, and offered their services
challenges: (clockwise from
for free on one condition: the Catholic top left) kids at an ASP in
and Protestant schools would have to South Africa; on the streets
share the teachers, with kids from both of Chicago; a young man in
communities present in every class. Glasgow
Lessons were held at the start or end of
the day so that parents from both sides
dropped off or picked up their kids to-
gether.
Since the shared education pro-
gramme was launched in 2009, the academic skills instant
effect on tensions has been dramatic. , schulische Fertigkeiten, , sofortig, unmittelbar
In the village of Newtownbutler, for Leistungen
life skills
example, where republicanists and bash , Lebensbewältigung,
, schlagen Alltagskompetenz
loyalists would stand up to each other
Fotos: After School Programme; Ed Kshi; Photofusion/Getty Images
every year, protests have dwindled. “It camaraderie martial arts
[)kÄmE(rA:dEri] [)mA:S&l (A:ts]
was a challenge,” McCusker explains, , Kameradschaft , Kampfsport
“but over recent years, you’ve seen the
choir [(kwaIE] primary school UK
kids from both communities coming , Chor , Grundschule
together and parents sharing the same
consistently register
school playground. It’s very hard to , durchwegs, beständig , sich anmelden
stand on the opposite side of the street
core rural [(rUErEl]
screaming at each other if you’ll be pick- , Mittelpunkt, Kern , ländlich
ing your kids up from the same school
drop sb. off strand
gate next week. Reducing violence is , jmdn. absetzen, , hier: Schwerpunkt
usually simple when you think about aussteigen lassen
tackle sth.
what motivates people. The problem is dwindle , etw. angehen
sticking with the plan. In a world that , zurückgehen
tensions
wants instant results, peace takes more for free , Spannungen
time than violence.” , kostenfrei
SOCIETY