Gang members, survivors work toward peace

But she finally did listen, and eventually came to realize that their relationship was a missing piece of the dialogue in Dorchester. "There are no winners in this community; one group goes to jail, the other to the grave," Chery says.

The group, made up of some 30 former and current gang members, meets about twice a week. The dialogue is meant to turn the focus from shooting, killing, or drug dealing, toward positive action - such as getting into school, forming a youth sports league, building a community center, or starting small businesses.

They discuss their mental health, their rights as former offenders, and learn about job searching, résumé writing, and interviewing. "We have power," Rodrigues says, "but we mess up by using it in a negative way." Violence, he says, "always starts over something dumb, like someone gets robbed or over a girl. Usually the issue is not serious until someone gets murdered."

Chery helps connect the group to lawyers, city officials, or academics. The group says they plan to meet with the Boston police in the future. But it is a grass-roots effort for now. "We are not going to solve a problem we've had for decades," says Chery. "But we are doing something that we have not mastered, and that's listening."

Programs like this are effective, says experts, because "insiders" understand the complexities on the ground. "Mario has a unique role to play, and as a city we have to struggle to figure out how to support it," says Deborah Prothrow-Stith, a community violence expert at Harvard School of Public Health.

That role can also present challenges. Not only might city leadership have trouble trusting their efforts, but they are also trying to reach out to a community that has too often been a victim. "We have to recognize that some in the community [may] feel directly victimized," says Ms. Prothrow-Stith.

Chery agrees, saying some parents that she works with may not accept her association with gangs while others don't even know about it. For Janet Connors, whose son was murdered four years ago, the efforts of the Unity Outreach Group are a step forward. "There are some survivors who can't embrace them in that way," she says. But she can. They are the ones, she says, who know the streets and who the real players are. "They are the ones that are going to make a difference."

The concept of restorative justice - connecting the harmed with their harmers - began to percolate in the US in the 1970s. The movement has grown slowly in relation to violent crime, says Wilson, in part because it is hard for victim-services divisions to be absolutely certain that victims' needs will be honored and protected. Wilson started his pro bono work with Just Alternatives in Maine five years ago.

It is hard to measure the success of such programs, too, but it is the small steps that matter to those involved, even if that means sliding backward first. Indeed, Ernesto Monell Jr., who had the idea of the Unity Outreach Group, was sent back to jail when he was caught with a gun last winter during a routine stop. "But he feels well, that his dream is coming true," says his mother Geneva Monell.

Bridging these divides is what is often left out of traditional response models, says Wilson. "If you try to make [offenders] see the light without him or her hearing what he or she has done, there is not enough light to see," he says.

Despite setbacks Rodrigues remains hopeful. "I do feel guilty for destroying our neighborhood, for causing parents all that pain and grief. But we can turn it around."

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