A couple of years in the past, Stevie Wilson, an incarcerated author and avid information shopper, started to note one thing irritating concerning the protection of gun violence in Philadelphia.
“I spotted there [were] some voices that have been lacking,” he mentioned. “We heard from elected officers, we heard from legislation enforcement, we heard from group organizations, however I wasn’t listening to from the individuals who authored, skilled, [or] witnessed gun violence. I wasn’t listening to from them, however I used to be surrounded by them.”
Wilson is presently incarcerated in SCI-Dallas jail in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. He’s been in jail for almost 16 years for a sexual offense, however maintains that he’s harmless. Earlier than being incarcerated, he was a group organizer in Philadelphia. He has taken on an identical position in jail, internet hosting numerous examine teams and doing mutual support work.
Via his community-building efforts, Wilson has gotten to know many younger males incarcerated for gun-related crimes. Whereas he witnessed gun violence rising up, he by no means participated in it. When he realized that a number of of the lads he met deliberate to proceed carrying a gun as soon as they have been launched from jail, he wished to know why.
“In case you already knew what the results are of carrying a gun, since you’re a convicted felon now, why would you continue to [be] keen to do that?” he questioned. “And I assumed that in that reply [was] a attainable pathway to options to gun violence in Philadelphia.”
With that guiding query, Wilson started organizing weekly roundtable discussions with younger males who had been concerned in gun violence. He estimates that round 15 individuals recurrently attend the classes, a lot of whom he recruited through a survey about their experiences with gun violence. The discussions vary from their reactions to gun violence protection (together with from the AmNews’ “Past the Barrel of the Gun” venture) to their ideas about root causes and potential options to this epidemic.
“The purpose [is] to offer them a platform to discuss their experiences and what they [think are] options to gun violence, as a result of I really feel in the event that they don’t purchase into no matter resolution we’re speaking about, it’s not going to work,” Wilson mentioned. “You’ll be able to move all of the legal guidelines you wish to move. You’ll be able to sit there and make it tougher to legally get a gun all you wish to. However these younger males are nonetheless going to discover a approach to get a gun and carry it. It’s important to determine why. Why are they nonetheless keen to try this? What’s their concern that’s not being met?”
The reply, Wilson has discovered, revolves round security.
“The primary cause why these younger males are carrying weapons is as a result of it makes them really feel protected … If we as a public don’t embody them within the time period ‘public security,’ that is why they’re going to hold their weapons.”
Wilson’s conclusions align with analysis on this matter. A examine that surveyed Brooklyn youth about why they carried weapons discovered that 75% of respondents did so as a result of they feared being killed. Black Individuals are disproportionately affected by gun violence, which is concentrated in under-resourced neighborhoods throughout the U.S. In lots of cities, Black males are additionally extra more likely to be arrested for firearm possession.
As Wilson has discovered, this criminalized response to gun carrying doesn’t essentially result in behavioral change. In truth, a meta evaluation of research of the results of incarceration on recidivism discovered that incarceration doesn’t scale back recidivism and may even have a criminogenic impact. One other examine discovered that people initially arrested for gun-related offenses have been extra more likely to be arrested for a gun-related offense sooner or later than these initially arrested for non-gun-related offenses.
The roundtables’ impression
When Ibrahim Sharif, 28, started taking part in Wilson’s roundtables, he was confronted with a query he had by no means thought of earlier than: What must change so that you can put your gun down?
“The best way [Stevie] requested it, you simply thought it was an everyday query, however should you suppose deeply, it is a resolution to your issues,” Sharif recalled. “As a result of should you can determine a approach to put your gun down, with out fascinated by some pretend fantasy, and [using] your mind, that’s all you needed to do the entire time.”
For a few years, Sharif had cycled out and in of juvenile detention and jail for numerous offenses, together with theft, assault, and possession of a firearm. Rising up in poverty in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., Sharif mentioned he was initially uncovered to crime as a toddler when older individuals in his neighborhood gave him medicine to promote, which he noticed as a approach to generate income. After his brother died by suicide, he grew to become extra concerned in unlawful actions, and started utilizing medicine to deal with his grief.
“I used to be about 13 years outdated. I wasn’t on the street life, I wasn’t actually wrapped up or caught up into that stuff. That was the turning level for me,” he mentioned.
In that surroundings, carrying a gun felt like a necessity.
“The life-style and the mindset I grew up on, I felt and believed that I needed to carry a firearm to guard myself,” Sharif defined.
Wilson’s roundtables compelled Sharif to “decelerate,” he mentioned. He needed to confront his previous selections and his previous trauma, together with his expertise as a sufferer of gun violence: In 2019, he was shot within the stomach and required life-saving surgical procedure.
“You begin to come to the belief [that] I’m not gaining nothing from this. I’m not successful, it’s not working,” Sharif mentioned.
Wilson mentioned that Sharif’s expertise as each a perpetrator and sufferer of violence is widespread amongst roundtable members.
“Folks put these younger males in containers as perpetrators of gun violence, not realizing they’ve really been victims, and so they’ve witnessed it, and all of the trauma that they’ve skilled,” he mentioned. “The [Department of Corrections] is just not going to ever have a look at them as victims of violence, and this roundtable brings them into an space the place they’ll speak about being victims.”
Finally, Sharif realized that placing his gun down would require shifting away from Wilkes-Barre as soon as he was launched from jail. The assist from Wilson and the opposite members gave him the assumption that he might succeed elsewhere, regardless that he can be separated from his household and assist system.
“[Stevie] helped us write plans out and [gather] assets and construct resumés to indicate that we have been placing in work earlier than we have been launched, to indicate that we wished to alter earlier than we got here [out],” he mentioned.
Since his October 2024 launch from jail, Sharif has been residing in Philadelphia. He determined to make use of development and constructing certifications, which he earned from Johnson Faculty as a part of a jail re-entry program in 2016, to begin a house enchancment firm. His legit earnings stream, and the truth that he has no prior relationships with individuals in Philadelphia, means he now not feels the necessity to carry a gun.
“Plenty of the stuff that I received occurring now, if I wouldn’t have stopped and slowed down and sat at that roundtable, I wouldn’t be capable to do it proper now,” he mentioned.
Sharif desires to play a component in steering others away from the streets. He plans to supply jobs at his firm for youth in danger for violence, and turn into a mentor for them.
“They should perceive and know that they’re able to earning profits legally … That [is] an enormous drawback, too, with gun violence, as a result of once you’re working, you’re not round [the streets],” he defined.
Like Sharif, Andre Johnson, 25, additionally had a transformative expertise from taking part in Wilson’s roundtables. Johnson grew up in Philadelphia and Norristown, Penn. His troubles began after he was kicked off of his soccer group at 14 for misbehavior.
“As soon as I ended taking part in soccer, I simply had extra time to be within the streets and it was like, sports activities and the streets have been taking part in tug of battle with my life, and the streets received,” he mentioned. “Cash was what actually drew me to the streets, and all the things else simply got here with it. You begin getting hooked on the approach to life.”
At 18, Johnson was incarcerated for theft and felony use of a communication system, and sentenced to 13-and-a-half to 27 years in jail. He’ll turn into eligible for parole in 2031.
Final 12 months, Johnson received to know Wilson by way of an Islamic research course he was taking part in.
“Sooner or later, [Stevie] simply heard me speaking, and he was similar to, ‘Why do you continue to have that very same mindset?’ And we simply began speaking about that, [and he was] telling me find out how to depart the streets alone and all the things,” Johnson recalled.
After the dialog, Wilson requested him to jot down an article about his experiences with gun violence. Initially, Johnson was reluctant.
“I advised him, ‘Why would I do this?’ It will be like I’m a hypocrite, as a result of I knew after I come dwelling, I’m going to have a gun on me,” he defined. “[But Stevie] was like, ‘No, I need you to jot down about why do you may have a gun on you? What’s the explanation for you not placing your gun down?’ And after I checked out it, I used to be like, ‘Rattling, no person actually requested me that. It was at all times ‘put the weapons down, a gun is unhealthy,’” Johnson mentioned. “So then we simply went from there.”
Johnson started taking part within the roundtables. Final Could, he co-published an article with Wilson for The Abolitionist, {a magazine} printed by Essential Resistance, a jail abolitionist group. Johnson mentioned he’s now extra open to altering his life-style when he does get launched from jail.
“It confirmed me that there’s extra to life than simply the streets — like I can do higher, doing one thing good as a substitute of doing one thing unhealthy. And I could make a change inside myself,” he mentioned.
Bridging the hole
Going ahead, Wilson says his purpose is to bridge the hole between imprisoned peoples’ experiences and people on the skin working to implement systemic options to gun violence.
“I’m hoping that this venture creates a connection between the group organizations, the establishments, and presently imprisoned individuals in order that we are able to come to an actual resolution, an answer that the people who find themselves presently incarcerated, who’re coming dwelling, can purchase into. And so they’ll put their weapons down,” he mentioned.
Whereas constructing these connections is an ongoing problem, Wilson says the venture has been rewarding by itself phrases.
“To really watch these younger males — a few of them who’ve been shot a number of occasions, they’ve been shot at much more occasions, they’ve shot at individuals — to have the ability to get to an area and really feel protected sufficient to open up and be weak, and speak about their fears and their hopes and their wishes for security, and the way they need to have the ability to stroll round and never have to hold a gun. That to me is so necessary … and that has really been a pathway to therapeutic for thus many of those younger guys,” he mentioned.
Shannon Chaffers is a Report for America corps member and writes about gun violence for the Amsterdam Information. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps maintain her writing tales like this one; please take into account making a tax-deductible reward of any quantity at present by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
