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- [00:01]
Ana Zamora
If there were a magic wand to create safety, we'd be using it already. But real safety is complex and every community has unique challenges and opportunities. That's why we launched you'd've got Options, a storytelling effort to show how programs like Cahoots in Oregon, the Baton Rouge Community Street Team and many others are working alongside local law enforcement to prevent violence, respond to crisis, and build safer, stronger communities. The reality is we do have options, and these stories show us what's possible when we rethink safety. Visit our website@thejusttrust.org to learn more.
- [00:41]
Akilah Cherelle
Hey, it's me, Steve Burns. And I'm so glad you're here because you and I go way back, right?
- [00:47]
Ana Zamora
Yeah.
- [00:47]
Akilah Cherelle
And look at us now like we're all grown up. We've got this new podcast where we talk about all this grown up stuff and there's special guests like Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Nye. But for the most part, it's about you. I mean, it's always been about you. From Lemonada Media Alive with Steve Burns is coming September 17th. Wherever you get your podcasts or you can watch every episode on YouTube.
- [01:13]
Lemonada.
- [01:19]
Ana Zamora
Welcome to when it clicked. I'm your host, Ana Zamora. I'm the founder and CEO of the Just Trust, an organization fighting for a justice system that works better for all of us. This season we're showing you what a better justice system actually looks and feels like and why it should matter to you. We're going way beyond talking about what's bad and broken because a better way is already happening right now. We just need more of it. Our guests are innovators and advocates, entertainers and government officials. And they're all on a mission to help the American justice system move beyond being just a tool of punishment to a tool of real accountability.
- [02:06]
It's impossible to have public safety without including the public. That's the driving idea behind Akilah Cherelle's work in community violence intervention. As co founder of the community based Public Safety Collective, he's using his personal experiences and proven approaches to make neighborhoods safer. In 1992, Akilah helped broker the historic Watts Peace Treaty between the Bloods and the Crips that cut LA homicides by nearly half. He then took that same approach to Newark, where his team dramatically reduced violence by pioneering evidence based interventions in cities across the country. Akilah has proven something very powerful. The people most impacted by violence are often the best equipped to solve it. Okay, let's get into my conversation with Akilah.
- [02:58]
I'm really Curious about how people's upbringings shape their view of justice. You know, so growing up, what were you taught about right and wrong and what did you think about crime and jails and prisons and that sort of a thing?
- [03:14]
Akilah Cherelle
I had a pretty unique upbringing. I was born and raised in the Nation of Islam. My mother and father were both activist organizers. You know, so my perception of justice was shaped by the nation. It was a black liberation organization, you know, that was all about doing for self and defending self and owning your own. And so the first nine, 10 years of my life, you know, we went to Muslim schools that the nation organized. And so, you know, everything was about, you know, do for self and do for black and that we could accomplish whatever we put our minds to. And so when my mother and father separated, like after the Nation of Islam actually broke up in 75, we moved to the housing projects where my mom grew up at in motto. And there is where I came face to face with many of the things that we talked about, like philosophically in the nation. That was stark in my face. Growing up in the neighborhood. So justice was being handed down by law enforcement, and it was challenging. I mean, I witnessed things growing up in a neighborhood that no child should ever be subject to. As a kid, you know, I was smashed in the face and hit my head up against the wall by the police because we were playing and they just was like, hey, you're doing something wrong out here. You know, I experienced racism, you know, for the first time, you know, selling candy door to door. This was one of the ways in which we as poor kids were able to kind of start making money and sustain ourselves. So much of my perception of justice coming up as a kid was about overcoming oppression and fighting against the system.
- [05:04]
Ana Zamora
So how did that, how did that start to shape your teenage years and your young adult years?
- [05:09]
Akilah Cherelle
Yeah, as a, as a teenager, you grow up in the Jordan House down housing projects in Watts. I mean, it was challenging. Watts has the largest concentration of public housing west of the Mississippi. So these four big housing projects, you know, were separated by railroad track. You know, the Crips on one side of the tracks, the Bloods on the other side of the tracks. And so the middle school set right in the middle. You know, I went to Markham Middle School, and that's where we met our so called enemies from the other side. And so negotiating gang culture and gang life, you were guilty by association. The fact that I lived in Jordan Downs labeled me. And so the homies told us, hey, here's how you respond when somebody come and ask you where you from, they was like, that's code word for that. They're about to beat on you. And so when somebody asked me where I was from, I mean, I started fighting. And I got kicked out of middle school because my best friend got shot in the head and killed on campus in middle school. Ronzell Pointer. I dedicate a part of my TED Talk, you know, to my brother because he's been my inspiration my entire life, you know, to ensure that my brother's death wasn't in vain. Right, yeah. And so, you know, navigating the gang culture was traumatic.
- [06:24]
Ana Zamora
You know, I mean, you know, I've also heard you describe gangs as surrogate families, that it seems like there's another side of gangs too. I'd love to hear. Why did you use that language when you're describing gangs?
- [06:40]
Akilah Cherelle
Because many of us, you know, who are part of the gang culture, we lost our nuclear family to the real killer, which is poverty and trauma. You see, trauma was allowed to ripple and fester in our neighborhoods without trauma. Recovery centers and therapeutic services to help folks heal. In the early, like 90s was this time when the system still saw black folks as the problem, you know, and that somehow, even though we were paying billions of dollars into public safety infrastructure, we were responsible for our own safety. You know, when you look at clearance rates around homicides and non fatal shootings, our stuff wasn't being addressed. It was left up to us to deal with it. And so, you know, when a gang shooting happened and see, most of this stuff had nothing to do with gangs. It was kids who, you know, responsibility it is, is to buck up against, you know, their parents, ideas and systems. Right. We were labeled, you know, gang members. Right. Even though the culture was more of a surrogate family in which people, you know, spent time, they had a common culture and a neighborhood. But when the system labeled us as gangs, it conjured in an image in most of the public's imagination that we were organized like the mafia, that we had armories and treasuries. And it is so far from the truth. And the media participated. The first three stories on the news was about these gang members who were killed on Central in the 103rd. And people would be like, block them up, throw away the key. But if the media said that there were three 14 year old boys who were shot, we would have gotten a different type of response. So the label dehumanized us and it desensitized the public to our cry for help.
- [08:24]
Ana Zamora
And I'm just Really, really struck by trauma and the immense trauma. I mean, something you talk about in was how much loss you experienced growing up. And you've already mentioned some of that, but you say in your TED talk that you attended 20 funerals by the time you were 16. And based on what you're telling me, my guess is that's not a unique experience. That that was something that so many young people in your community experience. Just constantly being surrounded by violence and trauma. And when you're surrounded by that much violence and trauma and loss as a young person, how does that change the way you think about safety? And how has that shaped how you think about safety now?
- [09:06]
Akilah Cherelle
It desensitizes you. I mean, for years, I didn't think that I would live past 21. You know, so many folks in the neighborhood died at such a young age that it was. It was really horrific, you know, to witness. I went to college, right, Inspired by my sister, essentially, to hide, you know, from what was happening. Because, you know, 1987, 88, was the height of the war in L. A. We're talking about thousands of murderers, you know, 1100 in the city, 1500 in the county. And most of it was like, if you just wore the wrong color, you was getting shot down. Right?
- [09:40]
Ana Zamora
That's right.
- [09:41]
Akilah Cherelle
And so I never questioned the violence that I experienced, you know, in the neighborhood because it meant to question the violence that I experienced in my own house, you know, and, you know, I am a survivor of CSA of childhood sexual abuse. Me exposing that secret in my personal life for the first time was my invitation and like an initiation into being able to question the violence that I saw happening around me. And in college, Johnny Scott, who was a professor at Cal State Northridge in the Pan African studies department, became my mentor. He heard about me and my partner, you know, coming from Jordan High School, he went to Jordan High school in the 60s. He got accepted to Harvard, went to Stanford, and then became a professor at Cal State Northridge teaching Pan African Studies. And he came to the dorm and had us to sign up for all of his classes. Professor Johnny Scott introduced me to the Autobiography of Malcolm X. He introduced me to James Baldwin, the Evidence of Things Not Seen, you know, Clyde Brown's manchild in the Promised Land, you know, Paul Robeson and Black Images on the Silver screen. I mean, blew my mind.
- [10:46]
Ana Zamora
I bet it did.
- [10:47]
Akilah Cherelle
And. And it. It gave me language, it gave me courage to challenge, you know, the prevailing myth that existed in the neighborhood, that we were responsible for all of the death and destruction that was happening in community, he helped me to reorganize my language, you know, because for black folks in this country, you know, we always said, hey, our history in this country was that we were slaves. No, we were enslaved. You know, and it's a whole different thing to say that you're enslaved versus being slave because it puts the onus on someone else who put us in that position. And it also triggered, you know, a lot of what, you know, I grew up with in terms of the Nation of Islam as a kid, right? And so bringing together, like, kind of the theory of. Of what I grew up with in the nation with now what I had experienced as a young adult in the neighborhood, now learning about, like, kind of Malcolm X, I was like, this is my life. You know, it empowered me.
- [11:51]
And, you know, I was like, yo, if I could heal myself, you know, I was like, then we can heal this community. We can bring, you know, forth this. This deep secret and shame.
- [12:07]
As a way of exposing the secret, giving others permission to do the same so that we can utilize this as a bomb to heal the neighborhood. And so we started organizing.
- [12:23]
Ana Zamora
At the Just Trust. We're working to make sure the United States becomes a global leader in justice and public safety innovation, not just a leader in our incarceration rate. There's so much opportunity to move us from a system of punishment for the sake of punishment to one that actually centers prevention, safety, accountability, rehabilitation, and healing. Right now, that means powering innovative programs and policies that significantly improve our institutions and make our neighborhoods safer. But we can't do this alone. Your support helps us continue to push for meaningful change in this moment. Together, we can build a justice system that works for everyone. Visit thejustrust.org donate to join us in this mission today. Hello, I'm Gretchen Rubin. And I'm Lori Gottlieb. We're two friends, one a happiness researcher and the other a therapist, and we are here to tackle the problems of everyday life with all of you, from big issues to small. We'll share advice and fresh perspectives, and we'll also highlight responses from you, our listeners, to the questions we discuss. Whether it's that pet peeve that's been bugging you for years, a tricky dilemma, or just something you've always wondered about. We'll talk it through the since you asked podcast from Lemonada media premieres on September 23rd. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [13:48]
Akilah Cherelle
All the.
- [13:48]
Ana Zamora
Years I've known you, Akilah, I've always wondered, what was that moment? What gave you that courage to in 1992 go and negotiate.
- [14:00]
Something that is truly extraordinary and history making, which was that peace treaty.
- [14:09]
Akilah Cherelle
The transformative experience that happened was me telling this woman that I was crazy about and loved, telling her that I was sexually abused as a kid, and her asking me who, what, when, why, where? I was like so shocked. But I immediately started like questioning. Like my first question was, why didn't anybody save me? You know, and then who else had this had happened to? And years later, you know, I started hosting conversations and stuff with folks in the neighborhood and discovered that 90% of my partners had all the same experience. So so much of the rage and anger that existed in the community amongst young black men was because there was no intentional space created for us to be able to talk about what happened to us. We were defined by our experiences, you know, and the system didn't want to hear about what we had suffered through. And so we started out just by marching in all of the housing projects and stuff, you know, speaking with, you know, our so called enemies. And so this is how we inspired the homies in the neighborhood to take the first step. These marches and chantings that we were doing in the neighborhood, you know, we would come down the block 20 deep, you know, chanting stuff like, I don't know what I've been told. African people are mighty bold. Done destroyed the old plantation. Now we're going to build a new black nation. Black, black power getting stronger by the out. So that we come down the street and folks would come out and look.
- [15:29]
Ana Zamora
And see and then like, what is going on, right?
- [15:32]
Akilah Cherelle
And then we educated ourselves about the law. We had a couple of black cops, you know, that was on the force that, that saw what we were standing for, that we was, we were looking to stop the killing in the neighborhood. And they saw us engaging with folks to dismantle the conflicts and stuff and telling us about how to report like brutality. Because, you know, every major rebellion in this country started over excessive force issues with law enforcement. It was no different, you know, from what. What kind of gave the ground way you know, for us to organize a peace treaty. We started challenging the police in the neighborhood in a way that the homies never saw. They used to dehumanize us. They would make people put their hands behind their back and lay flat on their face in the street. Come on now. You know, one of the things that the police used to do to perpetuate the conflict between us was that they would pick up the homies late at night, give them flashlight therapy, I mean, bust their head open with them big old flashlights. And then they would drop them off in the Nickerson garden and say, a crip is over here. And then they would get beat half to death.
- [16:29]
Ana Zamora
It was such. Such a corrupt time in LAPD history and just exacerbated all these problems, despite all the incredible organizing and community work that you were doing at this time, you know, and it really.
- [16:44]
At this time, you were pioneering something that today we know very well and we call community violence intervention.
- [16:54]
Akilah Cherelle
That's right.
- [16:55]
Ana Zamora
But it didn't exist at the time. You created it in Watts in your neighborhood. And after this peace treaty and after all this incredible work you did with Watts, were you like, this is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life? What was your feeling after this incredible moment that happened with this peace treaty? Like, where did you think your life was gonna go next?
- [17:20]
Akilah Cherelle
I mean, as kids, you know, the thing that we used to dream most was touching every yard, you know, in the prison, in the juvenile hall, so that you gain your stripes and you be, you know, a general in the neighborhood. But here, now, we created the peace treaty, changed the quality of life in the neighborhood. Homicides dropped 44% in the first couple of years.
- [17:40]
Ana Zamora
44%. You know, unbelievable.
- [17:43]
Akilah Cherelle
Phenomenal. We opened up lines of communication with cats in the neighborhood. Men became fathers to their children for the first time, because there's always this fascination with, you know, you want what you can't have. And so a lot of the girls from the Nickersons was with guys from the Jordan Downs and vice versa, you know, so there was peace treaty babies and everything that was born. Right.
- [18:01]
Ana Zamora
Peace treaty babies.
- [18:02]
Akilah Cherelle
I love it. It's like. And look, the Watts car was tight. We started rolling together everywhere, like, deep. The celebrations that we had, man, People came not just from the housing projects in Watts, but people came from all across the city, then across the country to celebrate, you know, this new beginning. And, you know, during the time we. We partnered with hall of fame great Jim Brown, you know, who was a real catalyst for the movement, because Jim financed a lot of this work. And we got contracts with the city, county, you know, state department of corrections. And so here we are now, you know, have a company. I'm like, I think, 21, 22 years old. I'm the director of education, you know, and, you know, in the right hand of Jim Brown, you know, And Jim's celebrity opened up so many doors, you know, so I'm now traveling all across the country, living on the road, going to different cities. I remember when we went to Chicago to bring the peace treaty to Chicago. Man, it was 400, you know, cats came out, you know, and provided protection for us to come in the neighborhood to host this conversation around creating a piece. You know, it was.
- [19:18]
Ana Zamora
I mean, it's so powerful, right?
- [19:21]
Akilah Cherelle
I never in my life thought that this is where the work would lead. You know, next thing you know, we're on Geraldo, we're on Sally, Jesse Raphael, we're on all of these different shows.
- [19:32]
Ana Zamora
And then. And then skip ahead. You have been pioneering this work across the country, and you find yourself working in Newark, New Jersey, a city that at that time was one of the most violent places in our country. And it had been for 50 straight years.
- [19:50]
Akilah Cherelle
That's right. That's right.
- [19:52]
Ana Zamora
Tell me what happened when you brought your work to Newark.
- [19:57]
Akilah Cherelle
Amiri Baraka is one of the fathers of the black liberation movement. And so Ras Baraka, you know, we had been friends for many years. And so in 2004, Baraka was principal at Central High School at the biggest high school in Newark. And he called me and said, hey, man, you got these kids running around here? He was like, we got a little war going on in the neighborhood between the gangs, he said, and the gang is Grape Street. And so he was like asking me how the peace treaty was going. He was like, hey, can you bring some of the homies out here, you know, to talk with these cats about the peace treaty? So we started conversation. In 2004, we organized a peace treaty between nine Trade Bishop and Grape street in Newark. And we maintained relationships. Now this work is all about relationships, you know. And so those brothers who was a part of organizing the peace treaty are still in the game now. And so 2014, when Baraka was elected mayor, he called me and was like, brother, come in town. I need you to help me now build out our community based public safety initiative. Those cats. When we did the peace treaty in 2004, they now had the shoes. They were the shot callers in the city. And we sat down and we launched the Newark community street team. 16 credible messengers. We trained them in conflict resolution and de escalation strategies through the professional community intervention training institute. Because we don't deploy people in the field that haven't been trained. And we started leveraging our relationship capital in neighborhoods to intervene and mediate conflicts. And in the first three years of our work, we saw double digit reductions in homicide. 12%.
- [21:32]
Ana Zamora
12%. Unbelievable. How did the community in Newark change? Like, can you think of, like, if you think of Newark before the Work of building boots on the ground. And then after what. What would you say are some of the differences?
- [21:46]
Akilah Cherelle
You know, the thing about violence, you know, all of the violence is underscored by trauma and poverty. There was little to no infrastructure to support, like, victims and survivors in their healing journey. There was no kind of, like real programming that was ran by local folks in the community. It was all ran by somebody else from outside. Right. And so one of the first things that we launched was this thing called the Public Safety Roundtable that still exists today. So every other Tuesday from 10 to 12, you can jump on YouTube now or on Facebook and participate in Newark's Public Safety Roundtable. Because public safety is a very abstract idea. You say public safety, people say police, you know. Right. And so Public Safety Roundtable was about putting public safety into public hands. We. We created a space so that people felt safe about coming in and talking about what was happening. That. That made the neighborhood unsafe. For instance, on NY street, you know, all of the lights were out, and that's where a lot of prostitution happened, you know. And so, you know, Mama Sharon, you got to give a. Gotta get a big shout out to Mama Sharon because she lost her nephew. She got involved with the Public Safety Roundtable and she run things in there and then down, straight up, you know. You know, she was like, those lights is out. And so we were an action group. We had an easel pad, and all of the issues that came up, we wrote down and we would go after them. So we called, you know, like kind of nuisance abatement, pseng to the table, you know, so that we can hold them accountable. They were like, hey, if you get us a street, you know, the numbers on the polls, we can get out there and we can fix the lights. And so Ms. Sharon got all of the streets. She was like, I got them right here. She gave them to him. And we followed up, followed up, followed up, up. And next thing you know, they fixed all of the lights on the eye, you know, and it was no longer this old dark area that people was getting snatched up on and all types of stuff happening to people over on that street. And so that was significant, right?
- [23:42]
Ana Zamora
Turning on lights, turning on lights.
- [23:45]
Akilah Cherelle
Small victory for the community to be able to claim power.
- [23:48]
Ana Zamora
Exactly. And it's. It's a really important component of public safety. I mean, I think that is such an important message for folks. Listening to take away is exactly what you said. Public safety is kind of this term we use a lot, and it has been baked into us to associate it with police interventions. But the reality, what we learn from your work and new work and across the country is that it is a constellation of a lot of different things.
- [24:21]
We want to hear. When it clicked for you, when did you start paying attention to the justice system? Maybe you were a victim of a crime and didn't get the help you needed. Maybe you also had a loved one who went to jail or prison. Maybe you learned about it through your faith community. Send us a voice recording on your phone. You can share your name or not where you live and a little about the moment when the justice system came into focus for you. Reach us@infohejustrust.org.
- [24:51]
Is it just me or are things actually really scary right now.
- [24:55]
Akilah Cherelle
In the world of public health?
- [24:57]
Ana Zamora
Every day we're brings another confusing headline or yet again a far fetched claim. Vaccines are somehow up for debate and parents are scrolling TikTok for medical advice. I'm Chelsea Clinton, an advocate, author, investor, teacher and mom navigating this insane time right alongside you. I hope you'll join me on my new podcast, that Can't Be True, a show that sorts fact from fiction, especially on issues impacting our health. From Limonada Media and the Clinton foundation, that Can't Be True is out October 2nd.
- [25:30]
Talk about the role of law enforcement in all of this. I mean, you have made it abundantly clear that there is so much more to public safety than just police and police do play a role.
- [25:44]
Akilah Cherelle
That's right.
- [25:45]
Ana Zamora
Talk to me a little bit about how these two structures work together and how do you approach that relationship? Because. Because it seems to me that building trust is probably pretty important across the board. So talk to me a little bit about the role of law enforcement and how you build trust with law enforcement.
- [26:05]
Akilah Cherelle
That's right. The relationship between black and brown communities and law enforcement for decades have been strained to non existent. It's more have been more of an occupying force in our respective communities because of the history of law enforcement. Right?
- [26:20]
Ana Zamora
That's right.
- [26:21]
Akilah Cherelle
So this is a hard won relationship and so we had to build trust with law enforcement. Now today we call the relationship between community violence intervention practitioners and police. We call it a professional understanding because we have separate tracks. We have the same goal of creating safety in our respective community, but we go about it doing differently. We're like hey, give us intel about what you know about happening in the neighborhood and we'll utilize that intel to be able to intervene and mediate conflicts. The practitioners in the field gained respect for law enforcement because see, they don't know how police works.
- [26:55]
Ana Zamora
No.
- [26:55]
Akilah Cherelle
And they thought that these cats was just, you know, eating coffee and donuts and parked in the car waiting for a call. And then they discovered that, oh, the police department is understaffed, that there are 30 homicides out here that they're investigating and they got two or three people in the unit. You know, that some of these cops are working, you know, 12 hour shifts, like four days a week. You know what I'm saying? They don't always get to show up fully rooted in their humanity because they're overworked. Law enforcement, honestly, as a ubiquitous institution that's responsible for all safety, it's just not. Not. It's a false narrative. It's not real. It puts our cops in harm's way. So I'm like, who is protecting our cops?
- [27:32]
Ana Zamora
We expect so much. And Akilah, I think it is so, so crucially important that you are saying what you are saying right now about our law enforcement in this country. You're talking about the reality of law enforcement in America right now. And.
- [27:50]
It'S honest. And I think a lot of people assume that community violence intervention and leaders like you are anti police, that you're trying to replace the police, that you're trying to say, we don't want police in our communities. And I think what I'm hearing you say is it's a both hand and there's an opportunity here to really build true public safety infrastructure that includes police, but includes all of these other things that you're doing. And that. That in and of itself not only reduces violence and murder, which we have evidence of that, but it also can act as a healing mechanism around many of these issues, which is so important.
- [28:27]
Akilah Cherelle
Yeah. Safety is a shared strategy and it requires multiple interventions. Right. And we can't put all of that on our cops to do, you know, because they're not equipped. You know, policing is a very much like cowboy culture. You know, it's like you're not supposed to be hurt or cry or be in pain. And it's. It's in our. And it's like, that is just not human.
- [28:48]
Ana Zamora
No, it's not sustainable.
- [28:49]
Akilah Cherelle
So I'm like, what type of counseling, therapeutic services that our cops get? You know, I'm like, our people need real therapeutic services and healing services, you know, and they need time to recover from traumatic experiences, you know, and be able to process it. You know, we launched something in Newark program called Trauma to Trust. And so we would get residents and law enforcement in the room, we would talk about Personal traumas and historic traumas. And we would unpack that thing. This is why, like kind of New Earth. I mean, still now we're trending lower than the numbers than we had last year. It's incredible. And it's like, yeah, it's phenomenal because you have a whole community that's now invested in creating real safety. And our cops are invested.
- [29:34]
Ana Zamora
That's right.
- [29:34]
Akilah Cherelle
Because you know what? They saw those community violence interventions, do they work in the field? And they was like, yo, these people are serious about this.
- [29:41]
Ana Zamora
And why, Akilah? Because you can't have public safety without the public. Without the public. Which is something you say all the time. All right. I want to continue this journey that we're on. We're a new work. We're a community based public safety collective. And now, you know, I fundamentally believe that nobody in this country disagrees that we want safer communities. That's something we can all unify on every single person. No matter if you're a Republican, Democrat, you live in the city, you live out in the farm, like everybody wants to have a safe place to live, et cetera. But as you have pointed out, we as a nation have pursued safety almost exclusively through arrests, incarceration, punishment, the criminal justice system. And you have taken us on a journey to see that there's a different approach, a better way that people can actually see and importantly feel in their communities. So you're now in a place of scaling this even more.
- [30:44]
With the Scaling Safety project. So please tell me a little bit about scaling Safety. And I have to, to say, full disclosure, my organization, the Just Trust, is a proud backer of scaling safety. So I just had to say that. But please tell us about scaling Safety.
- [31:01]
Akilah Cherelle
We put together this strategy around scaling safety in which the community based public safety collective would focus on building the capacity of community based organizations and doing strategy with the goal of reducing violence in community. And, and the alliance for Safety and justice work would focus on doing the advocacy work to make this work permanent in cities. And so our combined efforts is about making real safety and community as a complement to existing public safety infrastructure. Right. Our North Star is to reduce violence by 50% in five cities across the country. So Austin, Cleveland, 50% Jackson, Mississippi, Miami and Tucson. Now, the approach that we're taking in these cities is, is violence is never concentrated in the whole city. Even if you think about Newark, 80% of the city of Newark, no violence was happening. It was all concentrated in a small area. Right. And so our focus, you know, is we working with city Law enforcement gather data to identify the core hotspots with community based partners in those respective cities. And we're starting in the key hotspot areas. And so we'll reduce violence by 50% in those areas. And then we'll build out in concentric circles. This is exactly how we did the work in Newark as well. We started in the south south ward and we built out to the west ward, to the east, to the north. And we expanded safety across the city because you have to engage local residents in the process. They have to own the safety process in order for it to be effective.
- [32:33]
Ana Zamora
That's right.
- [32:33]
Akilah Cherelle
And so 50% reduction, we're planning to triple the financial infrastructure of organizations. We're planning to double residents access to services, serving 2.5 million people across those five cities. And so we're already on the ground.
- [32:50]
Ana Zamora
You're doing it.
- [32:51]
Akilah Cherelle
But more than anything, we're not looking to institute kind of scaling safety as an organization in these cities.
- [32:58]
Ana Zamora
That's right.
- [32:58]
Akilah Cherelle
We're actually investing in building the infrastructure of these agencies, lifting them up, helping them to expand their services, and then doing the advocacy work with them to.
- [33:07]
Ana Zamora
Make this investment permanent. Absolutely. It's so brilliant, and it's a master class in how you combine systems change and advocacy and make the advocacy part of the systems change. I mean, it's just so brilliant.
- [33:22]
Akilah Cherelle
That's right.
- [33:22]
Ana Zamora
Akilah, we are getting near the end of our conversation and I have one final question. And it's something that has been percolating in my brain. This whole conversation, which is the work that you do and have done for so many years, is really focused, like you said, in communities that experience the most crime and violence, and.
- [33:47]
That is not every community in America. What would you say to folks who don't live in communities like Watts or in Newark, places that you've worked and are currently working, who are like, why should I care about this? What does it mean to me and my community and my family?
- [34:05]
Akilah Cherelle
You know, the number one cause of like, kind of violence in this country is not just homicides. You know, 40,000 homicides, that's happening a year. Also, suicide is huge as well. And they're opposites. Homicide and suicide are opposite sides of the same coin because at the base of them is the same sexual, physical and psychological abuse that we haven't addressed in many cases. And so I think that in some communities that don't experience a lot of outward violence, there's a lot of violence that happens at home and in the house and behind closed doors right in Some affluent communities, those high walls and fences and everything shields the public from seeing a lot of, of, you know, stuff happened that, that, that, you know, I, I mean, I'm a survivor of csa, you know, childhood sexual abuse. It takes the voice away and your ability to be able to protect yourself and that thing ripples throughout your life. Right. And people then live out of those wounds and they make decisions out of those places. Right. And so I, I think that that violence, you know, in any form. Right. Is important to be able to address taking a, a community approach. We have to create more intentional spaces in the culture for people to be able to talk about the deep secrets and shame in their personal life that actually leads to homicide or leads to suicide. There's not enough real mental health infrastructure. It has to go beyond talk therapy. And we have to introduce alternative healing technologies to support people to get to a place to be able to begin their healing journey around violence. Whether like, again, it's, you know, perpetrated outwardly or it's perpetrated inwardly. And so our hope is that community violence intervention, trauma recovery, mental health and crisis response, they need to be implemented in communities across the country and they need to be carried by people who are close to folks on the ground. And so instead of deploying our cops into a place where they probably don't know this individual and don't know a psychologist, it's better that if a family member is trained, you know, community health workers. This is why community health workers emerged, that transformed our public health system.
- [36:17]
Ana Zamora
Credible messengers, you know what I'm saying?
- [36:19]
Akilah Cherelle
I think that it's such a smart way, like. Right. It's about being smart on justice and not tough on crime, you know.
- [36:28]
Ana Zamora
Thank you so much, Akilah. I love talking to you. I learned so much about you today that I didn't know, which I really appreciate. And, and your work is crucial and you're showing us how to improve public safety, but you're showing us what durable public safety requires in this country. It requires all of us and it requires us to do a lot more than just arrest and jail people. So thank you so much for your work and I'm so privileged to know you.
- [37:03]
Akilah Cherelle
Likewise. And I'll just, I'll just say this in closing. Public safety is not just the absence of violence and crime family. It's also the presence of well being in the infrastructure to support victims and survivors in their respective.
- [37:16]
Ana Zamora
Hallelujah. Yeah, I love it.
- [37:21]
Thanks for listening to when it clicked. Be sure to check out Akilah's Ted Talk, which just recently came out when it clicked, is a production of Lemonada Media and the Just Trust. I'm your host. Ana Zamora, Hannah Boomershine and Lisa Fu are our producers. Muna Danish is our senior producer. Bobby Woody is our audio engineer. Music is from apm. Jackie Danziger is our VP of Partnerships and production executive. Producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Whittles. Wax Follow when it clicked Wherever you get your podcasts or listen Ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership.
- [38:05]
Two films, one powerful Message Our justice system needs a new story. Sing Sing from A24 and Daughters from Simpson street are two new films that shine a light on the cracks in our justice system and and the resilience of those impacted by incarceration. And while they're beautiful and entertaining, they're also calls to action. You can watch Daughters now on Netflix and Sing Sing in a theater near you.
- [38:34]
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