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| 263 12 The Line of Prevention Khary Lazarre-White The Brotherhood/Sister Sol is a rites of passage–based youth development program that serves children, mostly from the neighborhood of Harlem, in New York City. We offer long-term, comprehensive, and holistic services, surrounding our members with education and developmental programming . We provide support, guidance, and love, as we teach discipline and order. Essential to our process and demonstrated successful outcomes is access to real opportunities that enable our members to develop and grow. Much of the national dialogue on juvenile justice focuses on cases in which juveniles have committed atrocious, heinous acts of violence, acts that clearly demand that the adolescent be secured in some kind of facility. This chapter does not focus on these cases. The reality is that such incidents do not represent the majority of crimes for which young people are incarcerated in our country. Instead, all too many youth are being incarcerated for low-level criminal activity, such as nonviolent drug offenses, in which socioeconomic conditions along with poor choices have led to incarceration and for which alternatives to incarceration are possible. We have found, over fifteen years, that when we provide young people with the skills to change their conditions and help them learn critical thinking skills, the vast majority will choose a proper path. There is a fine line between a young person who commits a low-level criminal act and can be taught to correct his/her life, or even a young person who is on the verge of such acts, and a young person who crosses over that line, committing acts that lead to incarceration. This essay, and our work, focus on that line. We have had members who have sold drugs. We have had members who have joined gangs. We have had members who have used illegal drugs. We have had members who have committed robberies. With the proper supports , with guidance, with high-level representation when they are arrested, they have all chosen alternative paths of life. No member or alumnus of the Brotherhood/Sister Sol is in prison or jail, no member is on parole, and only two, out of hundreds, are on probation. 264 | Khary Lazarre-White A few years ago the president of a leading foundation attended a Brotherhood Rites of Passage workshop. A group of seven or eight alumni had returned to work with a group of nearly twenty teenaged members. This was one example, among many, of our male alumni returning to support the younger generation. They spent over two hours talking about the central issues they faced—in their communities, in their families, in their schools, and in society in general. The culmination of the workshop was that together, these young Black and Latino men, ages 15-23, created a “Survival Guide for Black and Latino Young Men in Harlem.” It is a powerful document that calls societal forces to task, speaks plainly about economic and racial injustice, takes responsibility for personal failures , acknowledges the lack of family support—and yet states, unequivocally, that while recognizing these realities, and because they know the obstacles so well, they will overcome them and be successful; there will be no excuses. It was one of many powerful sessions—the kind of unique power that comes from harnessing the passion, truth, and vision of young people, of providing space for exposure, investigation, and reflection and then directing it. It was a hot June day, and the room where the session was held was in a school building in East Harlem. The large windows of the classroom looked out onto a busy thoroughfare and housing projects as far as the eye could see—East Harlem being the area of the United States most densely populated by public housing. Through this window one could see rolling traffic, famous graffiti walls, elevated trains, school children walking home, hard-working people laboring, and also crews of young men, some merely hanging out, some smoking weed or drinking, some possibly selling drugs, and, invariably , some gang affiliated. The visiting president of the foundation was struck by what he saw in the room that afternoon, and he asked a powerful question of one of the recent alumni. He pointed to the group of young men on the corner and said, “Why are they out there?” and then turned his finger to the young man in the room and finished, “while you are in here?” The alumnus to whom the question was directed is...

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