DaytonDailyNews.com

After watching gang members' eyes moisten while listening to the mother of gun violence victims discuss their pain and heartbreak in a Hamilton County courtroom, Michael Blass penned an essay about the experience.

"I believe again," wrote Blass, director of law enforcement services for the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services. "I believe that there is hope for the hopeless, healing for the angry, justice for the community. I believe that lives are changing and will be changed."

The gathering of gang members in that courtroom for the de facto intervention — referred to as a "call-in" — was one aspect of an anti-gun violence initiative in Cincinnati that mimicked a similarly powerful program in Boston a decade ago.

That program and what has transpired in the Queen City has inspired the Miami Valley to try cutting its own problems with guns and gangs.

Sparked by the upcoming visit from David M. Kennedy, the driving force behind the Boston Gun Project of 1996, law enforcement agencies, rehabilitation agencies and community members will unite to curb gun crimes in a new non-violence plan beginning next month.

The initiative follows a Dayton Daily News series published Feb. 17 and 18 that found law enforcement agencies in the Miami Valley have connected assaults, drug trafficking, shootings and homicides to more than a dozen local street gangs.

Kennedy, now director of the Center for Crime Prevention at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, began the Boston Gun Project while on staff at Harvard University.

The project involved a plan to unite the powers of police, social service providers and residents to make offenders — particularly gang members — more responsible for their associates' actions with guns.

"Even gang members and drug dealers love their families and want to be safe and successful," Kennedy told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in February 2007. "Everybody wants those who will take help to have it. Everybody wants the truly dangerous to be controlled. We do not think we are of one mind, but in the most important ways, we are."

Here's how it works: Officials compel gang members — particularly those on probation or parole — to enter a courtroom and listen to stories about the effect gun violence has on others. They're told that if a member of their gang commits a gun crime, every member of the gang will be the focus of a closer watch. They're told that help will be provided to gain education and work experience if they want to leave the cycle of violence.

In Boston, the project helped cut homicides from 152 in 1990 to 31 in 1999. In Indianapolis, homicides were cut from 130 in 1997 to 96 in 1998. Cincinnati cut homicides from 89 in 2006 to 68 in 2007 after instituting a similar program.

"We started spiking in homicides and realized you can't arrest your way out of this problem," said S. Gregory Baker, executive director of community relations for the Cincinnati Police Department who also serves as project manager for the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence. "The solution doesn't always rest with the police department, but needs community members to work together on this."

In the past year, the Miami Valley has come to terms with its gang violence problem. Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl, who previously worked for the Cincinnati Police Department and viewed Kennedy's work there, helped bring Kennedy to the Dayton area in the hope that the area can see the same statistical drop in violence.

Phil Plummer, the Montgomery County sheriff, has collected a force of 40 ex-convicts with positive views on the issue to work on the streets.

"A lot of this is about community," said Rebecca Gaytko, special projects administrator for the Dayton Police Department. "(Criminals) don't care about jurisdictional boundaries, so we need people to work together."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7389 or knagel@DaytonDaily

News.com.

Legacy of the Boston Gun Project

What: The Boston Gun Project of the mid-1990s was a first-of-its-kind plan to combat gun violence by combining the efforts of law enforcement, social service and community groups and alerting gang members that they were being watched more closely and there was help available to get off the streets.

Did it work?: In 1990, there were 152 homicides in Boston. In 1999, there were 31.

Other success: Similar programs have led to reductions in gun violence in Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Chicago and Cincinnati.