Page 114 - Violence Prevention Through the Engagement of Violence Producers

communities experienced maximum benefit from the presence of both VIs and CCMOs

– receiving counsel, training with a stipend and/or placement into a formal programme.
When matched against all other participants, these ‘lucky’ participants represented the

ones with the greatest hope of leaving gangs full time. This is because they received
training, and most were employed and able to make a living from their certified training.

The youth who benefit from CSJP and VIP combined are mostly high-risk. The CCMOs
on their own do not target high-risk youth. Only 15 per cent of the 71 respondents who

were impacted by CCMOs in CSJP Only communities were high-risk, with another 27 per
cent medium-risk. The majority (58%) of the CSJP Only affected respondents were in the

preventative groups (none or low). Note, however, that of the 19 respondents who were
VI and CCMO participants 10 (53%) were high-risk youth.

The security forces were seen by inner city youth as the primary source of interrupting

violence; but the data show that they are perceived to only bring relief to communities at
war. They are of very little value otherwise. While they topped the interruption chart, they

never returned in any other – even as a minor group. This suggests that the youth are fully
aware that policing is not the answer to their prolonged social violence. In summary, even

in communities where the police are listed as helping to provide violence relief, the cost in
human dignity, freedom and physical loss is heavy on the youth. The second point to be

made here is that despite the violence interruption mandate of the VIP, the youth did not
perceive the VIs (or CSJP) to be core relief agents. This is why they were ranked fourth and

fifth respectively. For the youth who experienced the intervention of the two programmes,
they looked to the VIs and CCMOs for primary and secondary level intervention.

Nonetheless, the church, the security forces, youth groups, elders, and politicians are not
as effective as the VIs who can work with the dons and CCMOs concurrently to create

and maintain ceasefires, as well as positively redeploy combatants. The data show that
the VIP works – but needs to be resourced and better structured.

The VIs and CCMOs are not laced together into a smooth running system. Rather they

seem to be duplicating and to some extent competing. Violence interrupters, by their
very name, suggest that they should be distinguished from CCMOs (case managers) at

least at the tertiary or relief level. The distribution of the levels of violence reduction for the
VIs and CCMOs does not support a bias in VIs towards interruption (tertiary), and a bias in

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