Peace & Justice (Paz y Justicia) / Rescate

As most of my readers can probably tell, I am falling behind on my Blogging. I had grand intentions for my reporting this week, but having to start school again and confront all of life's twists and turns kept me away from my second "job."

Nevertheless, I am back again, and this time I will be sharing my perceptions of the ASJ project "Peace & Justice/Rescate." Algunos (some) of you might have seen the blog posting in which I recounted all of the events that constituted a site visit for this specific branch of ASJ (a bumpy, squished ride to the corte (court), a juicio (trial), and a plea bargain), but here I plan to expand on my understanding of the project by sharing the information relayed to me by ASJ's on-staff experto--Abe Huyser-Honig--and by ASJ's "Executive Director" Kurt VerBeek.

The official mission of the Peace & Justice project is to provide investigative, legal, and psychological aid for poor victims of sexual violence, gang violence, and other violent crimes. The Rescate (rescue) side of the project uses the same methodology and works in many of the same communities, but focuses specifically on helping children and youths 18 and under who have survived sexual crimes.

For a little bit of historia (history), Peace & Justice began in one of Tegucigalpa's poorest neighborhoods almost five years ago after a violent incident occurred in Kurt and Jo Ann VerBeek's community that involved an individual whose children were friends of Kurt and Jo Ann's children. Having seen an uptick in violent crimes since moving to the community and having experienced such senseless violence so close to home, Kurt felt the need to do something about the situation in Barrio Verde* (*I will follow ASJ's example by renaming the neighborhood). Pledging to not let the same situation happen again, Kurt began to work closely with another ASJ staff member to organize a response to violent crimes in Barrio Verde--a neighborhood that had reached the top of the charts with regard to the amount of violence in a given community and whose inhabitants were essentially terrorized by the individuals committing the violence. The response was called "Paz y Justicia," and it involved 1. an initial investigation by a private detective of a suspected offender/group of offenders, 2. a warrant for the perpetrator's arrest, 3. a subsequent arrest, and a 4. trial. Central to this strategy was the involvement of various ASJ staff members (a private investigator and a lawyer) and the cooperation of the local authorities. The second element requires additional explicacion (explanation).

One of the vital cosas Abe said was missing from Barrio Verde that made crime so rampant was trust. Without trust, why would an individual report a crime? Without trust, why would a member of the community stick out her neck to reveal who carried out a murder or brutal beating? Without trust, there would be no resolution--there would be no lasting peace. ASJ knew that the authorities had to be involved in the project in order to bring criminals to justice, but without having any reason to trust the infamously-corrupt criminal justice system, the citizens of Barrio Verde would most likely remain apathetic to a strategy that involved so-called public defenders. But as Abe expressed to me, there are good cops, and those good cops began to assist ASJ with the work involved with Peace & Justice. And the organization began to see results. As you might have seen in one of my earlier postings, through Peace and Justice, ASJ achieved 65 convictions for murder, robbery, extortion, and other gang-related crimes and 31 convictions for sexual abuse crimes. Moreover, those working with the project came to the rescue of over 80 violent crime survivors and helped to reduce the crime rate in Barrio Verde by 60%. No longer is Barrio Verde the most violent neighborhood in Tegucigalpa; it is now down to 14th!

Kurt added gleefully that there is no longer a gang presence in his community nor is there a bus tax (un impuesto charged by gangs so that bus drivers can operate in that area), achieving and exceeding his initial expectations. If this isn't evidence enough that ASJ is making a diferencia, I don't know what is...

You can imagine then that ASJ is experimenting with another community after the success of its "pilot program" in Barrio Verde. In addition, it has added the component of "Rescate" to the Peace & Justice project to ensure that victims of all ages and all violent crimes are served by the justice system (I witnessed the Rescate side of the project when I attended the court case last week). So far no concrete evidence seems to have emerged that the project is succeeding, but one can assume that exito (success) will come. I hate to discount the observable success of the project (men behind bars, guns off the street), but what most impresses me is that ASJ is focusing not solely on bringing justice to a community but also bringing trust to a community. The aspect of trust seems supremely important to situations involving violence and overall delinquency. Like I indicated before, without it, what is going to stop gang members from simply continuing their operations due to the lack of action on the part of the people they are victimizing? Without trust in the authorities and in the criminal justice system, what is going to stop violent offenders from carrying out their evil deeds over and over again? ASJ is committed to instilling trust in the communities in which it operates so that eventually ASJ's personnel don't have to work there; eventually they can begin to trust that the system will work for the people, thus releasing them from their duties. This "circle of trust" (Abe called it that, and I will admit to immediately thinking of Robert DeNiro) brings justice not only to a community but to a system. This is a beautiful thing, and the existence of such a strategy shows that ASJ is truly committed to changing structures.

Ademas de righting this injustice and thus relieving itself of its duties through the building up of trust, ASJ is also attempting to put itself out of work (wouldn't that be the day?) by implementing prevention strategies. Kurt explained to me that when jail outreach proved to be a flop (too many organizations working in the system already) and social services to the families of criminals proved risky (what happens when the individual being served finds out that the same people helping her put her son in jail?), ASJ began to use the Gideon Centers--another ASJ project covered in my blog writings already--as a prevention program. Remember the IMPACTO youth groups or the H-88 project that the UN would like to stop funding? These are the methods by which ASJ is attempting to steer youth in another direction. By offering youth a way out of the world of crime and by staying in close contact with youth that could be targeted by gang members for absorption into their violent maras, ASJ is tackling the entire problema before it even begins!

After seeing the way Peace & Justice works and observing how intentional ASJ's strategies have become to bring justice to a muchacho named Carlos, a community named Barrio Verde, and an entire system/structure, there is no doubt in my mind that this organization is for real. These people truly desire to keep injustice from ruining their country, and they have the results to prove that their work produces a more just society.