Solving Gun Violence: Mark Culliton & Michelle Caldeira

Karly Scholz 0:00

Welcome to solving gun violence, a weekly student led podcast from the University of Virginia's Gun Violence Solutions Project that tackles one of America's most urgent issues: preventing gun violence. Each episode will feature experts sharing actionable solutions to improve community safety while upholding individual rights. My name is Karly Scholz. I'm a fourth year at the University of Virginia and a host of the solving gun violence podcast. This episode features a conversation with Mark Culliton and Michelle Caldera, the co founders of Uncornered, a groundbreaking organization that is rethinking traditional strategies for reducing gun violence. Their work has been instrumental in driving an approach that helped decrease shootings in Boston by 40% in just six years. We discuss how investing in the potential of gang involved individuals, rather than just enforcing punitive measures, can end cycles of violence and generational poverty if you're interested in practical, evidence based solutions and the future of gun violence prevention, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Welcome you guys. It would be great to hear a little bit more about each of you.

Michelle Caldeira 1:23

Wonderful. Thanks Karly for having us. So I'm Michelle Caldeira. I'm the other co founder of uncornered Mark, and I have been working together for 13 years. And you know, being in this work is about solutions, so I love that we're talking about solving something here, and got into it through a path of trying to figure out how to implement at an organizational level, and how to find the right strategy to think about uplifting solutions from the ground up.

Mark Culliton 1:57

And thanks for having me and Michelle here today, and we're just excited to talk to people about finding ways to end street violence and this idea that it only exists because we allow it to exist, and because we're afraid to look to the people who really have within them the interest and power and networks to create the solution to make a different America.

Karly Scholz 2:24

That's great. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. Could you tell us a little bit more about the uncornered model and the impact that it's shown thus far?

Michelle Caldeira 2:33

So we started uncornered because we were at an organization that was working on transforming communities through education and looking around us and looking around our neighborhood, where we were located, and the individuals that we were working with recognized a small group of individuals who were not being engaged effectively through other programs or services or initiatives, and also recognize their power and influence in their networks, in their communities. And so uncornered started one on a couple of basic ideas, the power of networks, the power of connection, and the idea that individuals who have influence, who are directly and actively involved in violence today, have that power to influence folks and make changes in ways that others don't. And so we started with those individuals. We call them core influencers. And hire them, provide financial resources, the kinds of resources to really empower them to move their networks to different behaviors.

Mark Culliton 3:56

I guess I would just say the most important thing about on uncornered is not the what, but the who. And so we spend an incredible amount of time focused on who are the few individuals driving violence within each community, the absolute belief that they are no different than anyone else, and they want something different, that they're incredibly motivated to that because the violence is hurting themselves and their families. So the whole focus of the organization is to find those individuals to engage them and then ask them for help to end violence in their community. We're not helping them. We're not serving them. We are asking them to be the workforce to create peace. So that's probably 80% of our efforts is who are the key people within particular neighborhoods, within particular crews, whose change can motivate change to end violence, and the goal is 25% drop in violence per year per community that we're in.

Karly Scholz 4:59

That's great. Right? And you guys mentioned the core influencers, the who is really central to the work that you do here. Can you share a success story of someone whose journey through this program has changed their own trajectory and had a measurable impact on reducing gun violence and fostering opportunities in their own community as well?

Mark Culliton 5:18

Sure. I mean, there's tons of individual, transformative kind of stories. One is Francisco, who was supposed to be with us today, who was active gang leader in Boston, who now heads our all of our core influencer work. He's responsible for overseeing 250 individuals, and he really went from the corner through college courses to leadership. There's other individuals that have been active in crews and have managed to create change within their whole network. But really the key thing is, our work is not about individual transformation. It's really about do we see overall drops in violence in the communities that these individuals are from? So you know that Boston is now the safest large city in America. We attribute to the work of our guys that Kansas City, in the last year, saw 19% drop in homicides, 7% drop in shootings, is those individuals making different choices. So it's really about the city wide change. But these guys are so deeply networked and powerful that when they make different choices, it has this broad, community wide impact, unlike anything I've seen in almost 30 years in nonprofit work.

Michelle Caldeira 6:50

Yeah, I would, I would say, I think success for us, we start with this question of, What do communities look like without violence? And and so we look at those individuals, core influencers, and what they need to change their lives. And while it's not about individual transformation, one of the things that we sort of hold core to our work is that core influencers are no different than you or me, and so they want healthy and successful lives for themselves and their families. They just have not had the resources, opportunities, options that we've had. And so when we talk about being un cornered, it's giving someone that opportunity, giving someone the resource to really unlock that potential in themselves, to help them find purpose and purchase in doing something different. So that's, you know, we think about success, and Francisco is sort of our shining example of that. And there are many other Francisco's in our organization. You know, he's stepped into an executive leadership position with on corner like Mark said, we're in three, four cities right now, and he's overseeing the vast majority of the work that happens on the ground, starting from, you know, someone who is running around on the corners in the neighborhood.

Karly Scholz 8:20

That's amazing. That's really great. And you guys partner with diverse organizations in prevention, enforcement, education and mental health. How do you ensure these partnerships work cohesively to address gun violence holistically, for a for a community?

Michelle Caldeira 8:36

Yeah, it takes a lot of conversation, it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of building trust with those organizations. Lots of organizations exist and services exist in communities, but have never reached these individuals. And so we really see our work as customizing heavily those those services for core influencers, because they if they weren't working before, you can't just say, well, here just go get some mental health, right? You need to figure out exactly what type of service and how to how to structure it to make it work for for our guys.

Mark Culliton 9:25

One of the things we do is we actually we stick to our lane so we recognize there's this ecosystem of support services that are necessary and good quality. Enforcement and policing is important. Prevention programs are important. Re entry programs are important and crisis response, but we just stick with our last like it's the last mile problem. It's the last 75 200 individuals who aren't served by anybody else except for theiy're locked up regularly by police. I mean, when we did a study of our catalysts who are the active stipend members of our workforce, their average age was 26 and they'd been in and out of the criminal justice system 11 times by 26 so these are the super users, so they don't take advantage of anything else, and they're out there in our community, so our whole work is just supporting them to findmeaningful ways to make change in their life, and that changes their network. So we were part of coalitions, but we're hyper focused on this last part of our community because of their power and their unique power to create peace, we don't think anybody else can do it, and unless you're an organization set up specifically to serve this population, you won't be able to you can't be broad and customized enough for a young, 17 year old who has been vigilant their whole life, never been supported by anybody, always been let down. And they come in to your program, they're wearing a ski mask. They have a backpack with a big gun in it, and they want to walk in most places you couldn't allow them in. We have to be designed in a way where they're welcomed in, they're not asked to change, and they're given support as is. So we just stick with that part of the population and believe in their unique power because of those networks to create change. Could you tell me more about that specific how you really make sure people are getting the services that they need. How does that model work for you guys, when you're keeping that in mind, the first thing is that we take the leap of faith first. We don't ask individuals involved in violence to do anything before we're there for them, before we say that we love them, before that we give them a stipend. I mean, that's a key thing, is that immediately, if it's the key individual within the violent network, we provide financial resources right away without any you don't have to show up anywhere, you don't have to stop doing anything. So we're trusting them first, which shifts a whole dynamic, and we go to them and we're saying, we're not here to help you. We're not saying, what do you need? Because these guys will say, Look, I'm good. Like, fuck off. Basically, right? Like, but we say we need you because your neighborhood is violent, because your little nephew is in danger because your brother was killed. We need you to help us learn how to bring peace. So it's direct financial resources. It's asking them for help, and it's surrounding them and being recruited by individuals that they've known their whole life, that they've grown up with that have put in work, and they're the ones that are going and reaching out to them and saying, No, this isn't police shit. This isn't like this is our people bringing peace to our neighborhood. So it's really about shifting all those dynamics and narratives to say we trust you first, and we're here and asking for your help and knowledge and brilliance and capability to do something that we've failed to do as a city country for decades.

Michelle Caldeira 13:37

I think it's key to add we're not trying to change you right? We're not saying you need to do you know, these five things in order to get support or services. We're saying you're the right guy. And we had a key insight a few months ago or last year, where someone said, I've never been the right guy. I've always been the wrong person in everything. Right? They walk into a room like Mark said, they're wearing ski masks, they're carrying weapons, they're, you know, probably smell like weed. They're not the right guy. But now we're saying to them, Mark mentioned the last few the last mile problem in every community that we've looked at. And you guys probably know these numbers, 1% of the population is involved in up to 80% of the violence that's happening in that community, right? So when you're getting to that 1% who are you really looking for? And so that's how we reach individuals with the networks of that 1% so their uncles, their older brother, their you know, somebody that they know. I think one of the other key things that has helped me visualize it is core influencers are like a small town. They're super well connected. They know each other very well. All the conflict is happening between individuals in this network, and they're very isolated from the rest of us. And so when we walk in Mark and I are not out there recruiting folks on the corner, what we're doing is we're looking for folks like Francisco who from that community has quote, unquote made it out to not being locked up for a long time or not being dead. And so he's able to go back to his community with resources, with options, with opportunities. That is the sort of unique position that they're in, to be able to reach folks who are actively involved today.

Mark Culliton 15:50

Yeah. The other, the other thing that I would say is a core belief, and it's played out over the, you know, 10 plus years we've been wrestling with this question is these guys are and women are desperate to give back. They if you make it through active, violent, and you're only violent for a very short period of time on the streets, you're violent from maybe 17 to 28 or something, if you make it through that, either you want nothing to do with it, or you're desperate to make change, and yet you have no marketable skills, so you're unhireable, you know, because you don't know how to interview, because you don't have a license, you're driving everyone you have all of these outstanding warrants. You have child support payments. You have all these things. So you want to give back to your community make a positive difference, but you are stymied because there's no way to do that. So all we're doing is going finding those individuals and saying, Look, you can do this full time. We'll pay you a full time salary. And what do you have to do? You get $200,000 to go back to your family, your network, and provide direct stipends and supports to individuals that you know and love for this greater purpose, and you're part of something greater than yourself, like when you were active in your crew, you're part of a movement that's making change that is most going to affect your family and so really bad set of like transferable skills, the most important thing that they've learned coming to us is vigilance and distrust as a as a key thing to keep them safe so it makes it really hard to work effectively in an organization. Believe in an organization, and so you need something set up that gives them the time to start to believe maybe this is real, and maybe I can live into my purpose, and collectively we can. So we we talk about collective success all the time with everybody to say 25% is the goal. This is where we are this month. This is how this neighborhood has been impacted. And this is maybe the first time in most of these guys life where they've felt part of a positive purpose and an important member. And like Michelle said, the right guy, the right woman to make this kind of change,

Karly Scholz 18:28

Yeah, how do you continue to keep them involved and measure the impact on the community that these core influencers turn around and make?

Michelle Caldeira 18:35

One of the questions we get a lot is, why and how do they join gangs get involved in violence? This simplifies it a little bit, but not to simplify it too much. They say I was looking for community. I was looking for protection. I was looking for a purpose. And so like Mark was just saying, un cornered is now that community is now that purpose is now, that sort of idea where you can find that connection to do something different. You're looking around and you're seeing people who want to do something different now have different set of hopes and beliefs for their family, and actually feel like they can begin to establish trust, begin to let their guard down a little bit, begin to engage in different types of activities that they may not have before in that process, you know, it's not a finite place, right? It's not a finite journey. It's an ongoing learning and growth process for them. So I would say that's how, that's how they stay engaged.

Mark Culliton 19:44

Yeah, I think that's exactly it. My first answer was going to be like, I have no idea. So that's what we're trying to figure out. But we do think, you know, it's trying to foster if you can a sense of safety within just being able to show up together. It's practicing vulnerability, like a lot of time spent in groups, in small conversations about learning how to ask for help. And then probably the greatest driver is that sense of purpose, but the most important thing is showing up. So we just try to create reasons for catalysts, who are the active guys, or leads, who are their sort of managers, to show up together for things like whether it's site visits, whether it's you know, like food. We use food a lot. You know, come by for lunch. Like, what else are you doing? You know, you're just out there anyway. Or, like, tangible things, like, for example, in Kansas City, when we went in two years ago, none of the individuals that we worked with, none of them had a valid driver's license. They all drove so we could clear warrants right away. We could deal with child care payments right away. So there's some you can get some wins that sort of, again, it's, it's mostly about disrupting narratives more than the actual thing. And the biggest challenge of on cornered is that nobody believes that the individual that's going to change Charlottesville is that 17 year old, violent youth, and that's who we're counting on. Investors don't believe it, but they don't believe it themselves either. So you're disrupting their narrative that they're not the right guy, that they're destined for this life of either jail or struggles and saying, No, you can be the one, and the more they feel like the one, the more they want to proselytize that within their community,

Karly Scholz 21:54

Your work at uncordered really challenges some traditional approaches to reduction in gun violence and starts at a different place that a lot of more traditional gun violence prevention organizations do to you. What is the solution to get the gun violence epidemic in the United States look like?

Mark Culliton 22:11

So for us, it's our focus is very much on street violence in America. You know, which in Virginia last year that street violence cost the state $14.8 billion right? So it's a big problem. The solution is getting to loving, supporting and asking for help from the most violent few in each of our cities. It's totally doable, because there's so few of them, because they'll work so hard for peace and because there's enough resources to invest in them, but nothing else will work unless you get it to them and say, We will pay you to help us end this. The goal has to be to end street violence, and then you'll see a fundamentally different type of city in America, and these individuals are the only ones who are uniquely positioned to be able to do it.

Michelle Caldeira 23:10

I would actually say we don't have a solution, right? We are searching for a solution. We have a few approaches. And if there's anything towards a solution, what I would say is we have to try different things, and we have to keep asking the question, and we have to keep learning from core influencers. That's like, I think fundamental to how we get to a solution, because I think what we've done to date clearly hasn't worked. Violence is still way too high, too many homicides, too many shootings. And we've approached it at cities and communities by saying, Can you please just stop shooting? And so we talk a lot about financial resources, and you know, one of the first questions we get is, well, what do they have to do for that? It's about trying something different. You can't just approach somebody and say, Stop doing everything you've known, stop doing the way you know your life to be, and just do something different. There has to be a journey towards what that difference is and what that purpose is for somebody. So I think it's about the approach. I think it's about trying different things. I think it's about learning from the individuals who are at the center of the violence.

Mark Culliton 24:38

The other thing to think about is there's a responsibility of those with resources to support those without resources, and so we have never approached this population and trusted them. First, we've always asked them to trust us, and then you'll get some kind of reward. Father Boyle from homeboy, has this great line where everybody asks us, well, don't they take advantage of you? And he's like, they can't take advantage of me, and they can't take advantage of on corner, because we've giving them advantage. We are giving them. We know that they're going to make some choices that aren't the greatest choices with those resources, but it's our responsibility as those of us with resources to give to them first, and when you do because of their unique position within these networks, the change is unlike any kind of investment possible, and it's the only way in we don't have the solution, but they very well may, if we would just trust, love, get close and believe in those individuals driving the violence today,

Karly Scholz 25:55

Mark and Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today. Where can the audience find more information on what you guys do.

Michelle Caldeira 26:01

So you can go to uncornered.org and uncornered. C, O, R, N, E, R, E, D, all of our information about what we do is on there. Our information, I believe, is on there. Reach out to us. We are in Boston Providence, Kansas City, right now, and looking to blow to other cities. So happy to talk to anybody about this issue,

Mark Culliton 26:22

That's it. I got nothing to add.

Karly Scholz 26:25

Well, thank you guys for more information. You can also go to the gun violence solutions project website, and we'll see you next week.