What being shot at 12 taught me about crime

I was 12 years old the first time I was shot. A longing for the esteem of my peers had me out on the streets too late, with people who led me into trouble. My biggest concern afterward wasn’t seeking medical attention or caring for my emotional wounds, but how my mother would react.

I was shot four more times before I turned 19, all under similar circumstances.

Everybody, it seems, has an opinion about crime in California these days — whether they think it’s going up, staying mostly the same or near historic lows. But in San Francisco’s Hunters Point-Bayview neighborhood, where I grew up and still live, there’s not much up or down; crime just is — and, mostly, it’s pretty bad.

While I have long-since turned my life around, the experiences of my youth earned me hard-won insight into the nature of crime and violence. I know, for example, that the adage “hurt people hurt people” is true. After recovering from my last gunshot wound, I spent 10 years in prison on a weapons charge — not because I hurt someone, but because I wanted to.

I also know that victims and offenders are often the same people. Most of all, I know that the best path to public safety is through prevention and healing — not incarceration. That’s why I have been working for more than a

decade to organize youth and apply violence prevention strategies to improve community well-being in my neighborhood.

The group I founded for this work, Us4UsBayArea, recently became one of eight organizations chosen to pilot a new model for helping people harmed by violence. The We Are Survivors campaign, led by Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, provided each of these groups, located across California, with a grant so that we could give direct cash payments to crime victims to help them meet their immediate needs — without the red tape that too often accompanies victim compensation from the state.

One key problem is that state aid discriminates against many victims. For example, people with past convictions, people who are afraid to participate with law enforcement investigations and people accused of gang affiliations are often either ineligible or too intimidated to seek the assistance they need.

There are many reasons to provide assistance to crime victims. It can help meet unplanned needs arising from the crime itself — like finding a safer place to live or making up for lost income. It can offer a degree of “justice,” too, simply by acknowledging the harm that has been done. But what’s often less discussed is that victim assistance is violence prevention. Helping people heal from the trauma of victimization reduces the negative legacy that often leads to further undesirable behavior, whether that be substance use to numb lingering psychological or physical pain, or retaliatory violence.

Our organization was recently able to help the father of a 6-year-old killed by gunfire. We purchased a wheelchair for a young woman paralyzed by a bullet while riding in a car with her boyfriend. We provided financial aid to a mother devastated by the murder of her adult son.

Some of these cases may have qualified for government-financed support. But I am certain that our assistance provided these individuals — and their families and friends — with something a rigorously screened and often onerous bureaucracy cannot, the reassurance they are important, cared for and loved.

If we are serious about ending cycles of crime and violence, it makes no sense to deny victim services to anyone. If you have been harmed by crime or violence, you are a victim — regardless of any other characteristics you may have.

California would be wise to replicate this more inclusive model of assistance by investing in community-based organizations like ours to help us serve those in need. Building a robust infrastructure of trusted community-based organizations that recognize victims’ needs and can provide immediate, meaningful support to people in need. Furthermore, it would be a powerful demonstration of the state’s commitment to healing the trauma that too many victims experience. It would also be an important step toward ending cycles of crime and violence that have plagued communities like mine for far too long.

I spent a decade of my life in prison because I didn’t have the tools to deal with the trauma of my violent youth. While I didn’t hurt anyone during my worst moments, I easily could have. If we want to break cycles of crime and violence, we need to start taking the focus off simply punishing offenders and prioritizing helping survivors of crime get the assistance they need.