I was at a conference in Toronto a couple of weeks ago. An interesting concept--and of course it would need some adapting--was a program, the whole theme of which is to stop killing people. It is where they work with gang members, and they're not saying to get out of the gang; they're not saying anything other than, when somebody has been murdered, they rally. They have outreach workers who have been in gangs, who go and connect with the gang members and work with them, and the whole focus is that they're trying to get them to stop killing each other.
What I like about the program is that they're connecting with the gangs--and these are big gangs, these are not Mad Cowz or B-Siders, or whatever--they're connecting with the gangs as people, as individuals in the communities where they are. They're getting to know them and they have more influence.
What they say is, with that, you have the most influence in trying to draw somebody out of a gang immediately after they've been victimized. So it's trying to get to people as soon as possible, because I truly believe that there's a place for the criminal justice system, but when you incarcerate somebody, many of their peers are in that same system and it's that group mentality and thinking as a pack. What we need to do is get these individuals to think as individuals and have self-confidence to go beyond that.