P.C.I.T.I.

Los Angeles, a city I call home and known for its many attractions, but not much light is shed on its darkness. Its darkness of increasing youth gangs and violence. This raises the question: what is being done to address the gang “epidemic?” For this week’s field site visit, I went to the historic Stentorian Center, one of the first integrated firehouses in the LA County. Located in the heart of gang activity, this historic site is now P.C.I.T.I. (The Professional Community Intervention Training Institute) headquarters. Very briefly, P.C.I.T.I. is an organization of peacekeepers with practitioner driven community based gang outreach intervention. Some of their programs and services focus on community restoration and violence prevention by being on the streets and counseling gang members. (pciti.net)

Many gangs surround USC. Too many to give a precise number. Gangs operate on 5 Rs: Respect, Revenge, Retribution, Retaliation, and Rewrite. Lots of violence occurs with gangs because someone, somewhere disrespected a gang member. If they feel they have been disrespected in any way, this disrespect must be answered. But, it’s not always about violence in gangs. Many of the gangs around USC have respect for the university and its students. What some don’t know is that they look up to students because of dreams they couldn’t achieve. Dreaming of what it’d be like to attend and play sports for USC. These dreams often become shattered when they face the limited options of their communities.      

Many people have the misconception that the only way out of a gang is to be killed. They believe a teardrop or two tattooed next to their eye means they’ve killed someone. It can mean they’ve killed someone but usually it means they’ve done time. One teardrop for state prison and two teardrops for federal prison. After talking to former gang members, I’ve learned that getting killed is not the only way out. Eventually, one can gain respect within the gang and not gang bang anymore or be active in the gang. They simply remove themselves because they want to make a change in the community and provide more solutions for youth to stay out of the streets.

It was a great experience to hear these kinds of stories from former gang members, and how they decided to turn their lives around and become 24/7 interventionists. Aquil Basheer, a former member of the Black Panther party and founder of P.C.I.T.I., is doing an incredible job providing support in gang saturated communities around the world. He’s doing this by training over 10,500 professional Intervention peacekeepers, public safety experts, social health advocates, victim service specialists, and mental health authorities. Many people are working to fight the gang “epidemic” but it’s disappointing that we never hear about this kind of work being done.