Questions and Answers

2008 California Peace Prize Honorees

Kismet Evans

Q: Describe some of the challenges that you face in working with at-risk youth and youth involved in negative activities?

A: One of the challenges I face in working with youth is a lack of parental support, which is sometimes caused by the parents’ limited resources and other times by the parents’ own fears, limitations and social needs. It can be frustrating not having the resources to treat the whole family dynamic. When I have a teen hungry to change, and I see them leave with minimal support, my heart aches, because I know that when they re-enter their surroundings, it often means their needs won’t get nurtured or fed. That’s just the reality of it.

When you have a troubled youth who isn’t receiving a full scale of services, you’ve usually just lost for a fleeting moment. My goal, with as much clarity and simplicity, is to give them as much information as I can to convince them that violence is not the solution to any situation ever.

Q: How are the kids you work with affected by violence?

A: The kids that I work with generally experience violence at home, whether it's verbal violence or physical violence. They are coming to the program, looking for an avenue, a way out of what they're experiencing. I have kids that are in my program that are dealing with eating disorders, molestation, physical abuse, and family drug abuse with half out and on drugs and the other half incarcerated.

They have a lot of emotional and mental-health problems. I know they have not been somewhere to be diagnosed. These kids need help and they're not getting it. It’s not that their parents are horrible parents. It’s that their parents are unaware of their own problems and they're probably struggling themselves. I try and take the time to go to the communities. I want the families to know that I can support and help not just their teen, but them too.

Q: What do you think are some of the misconceptions about people who have been incarcerated and are now back working in the community?

A: I believe there is a misconception that they don't care: “Once a dope fiend, always a dope fiend.” There is a prejudice that parolees are lazy, always looking for a hand out, and never willing to do what’s necessary. Much hasn’t changed. If anyone pulled up my record, they’d see my past.

I’m sure I speak for thousands of men and women when I say that we have and continue to pay our debt to society by remaining productive and successful. My day is filled with informing, educating, mentoring, and supporting as many men, women, adolescents and teens with straight talk about drugs, violence and incarceration as I possibly can.

Q: Do you believe that violence is preventable?

A: Do I believe that violence is preventable? Yes! Absolutely. I believe anything learned in a negative way can be unlearned, but it takes more than resources, law enforcement, and collaboration of agencies. It takes consistency and family involvement.Lack of knowledge breeds ignorance and ignorance breeds violence. And this dysfunction usually begins in the home.

We need to get the entire family involved. I know this will take more funding, resources, and manpower, but are we in the business of being right or being effective?

Orlando Ramos

Q: How did you get involved in the work that you do?

A: My mother came into this country from Puerto Rico when she was 17 years old. She was pregnant and did not speak English. She settled in New York City and raised me and my sister on her own. She is absolutely my hero. She gave me a great work ethic.

I struggled a bit in school. I'm actually a high-school dropout. I lived in a '76 Ford Pinto as a teenager for a little bit. I truly learned the value of education and how it saves lives. In my case, it was the incredibly talented work of a teacher that knocked on the door of my Ford Pinto and said, "Orlando, let's get you into a GED program and then we're going to get you into college.” It was that person that helped guide me to where I am now.

After those experiences I said, "This is what I want to do.” I want to help others through education because I think it's the best way to move forward, reduce violence, and reduce poverty.

Q: Do you see a connection between violence and education outcomes?

A: Absolutely. Everyone should be talking about the horrendous statistic that we have more black men in prison than we do in college, which is shameful. Some states calculate their future prison-space needs based on 8th grade reading scores - imagine that!

By law, I have to give a student a certain amount of courses. A large majority of my students arrive struggling and reading one to five grade levels behind. My opinion is that when students like this come to me, I should be focusing on core academic courses and their needs. Why put them in these other courses? They're going to fail them because they can't read. I think we should be focusing on their needs like reading!

We often ask things of kids that adults can't do. We're expecting them to sit down and absorb for eight to 10 hours. Are we going to suspend a kid because he's late? I don't know if I've ever attended a staff meeting where everyone was on time. This type of thinking is often found in schools that serve predominately minority students. And we wonder why we are not progressing.

Q: How can we be more effective in preventing youth violence?

A: Every community has school buildings. Why do we have all these community-based organizations going out of business because of a lack of space? Let's use school buildings as the focal point of the community. After the academic day is over, let's bring in health resources, mental-health resources, and legal services. Let’s offer adult and GED classes.

Let's keep the school buildings open until midnight. Let's have midnight basketball. Let's keep the kids off of the streets. That's what I would love to see our schools become. I'm a big advocate of violence prevention through academics. The more you engage our students and the more needs you address in the school building, the fewer problems you’ll have out in the streets.

Billie Weiss

Q: How did you come to focus on violence, guns and violence prevention?

A: When I finished my graduate degree, I was an intern with the county of Los Angeles and, like most epidemiologists in those days, we worked in infectious disease. I began to look more and more at the data and I talked with my bosses and said: "You know, we're looking at the wrong stuff here. Kids are not dying of infectious diseases."

In parts of South Central, one in 200 young men of color was dying every year due to homicide and guns. Like most public-health systems, we had no money. But, I was able to get a state grant to bring together about 40 people in an office in the health department. What became very clear is that nobody knew what anybody else was doing. This was in 1990. We decided what we needed to do was to really talk to and learn from each other. Out of that group, we formed the Violence Prevention Coalition. Our work on guns was a natural. When you look at the data, you realize that there is no other country in the world that has this many kids being killed.

Q: Can you explain what it means to work on violence prevention from a public-health perspective?

A: Public health looks at health conditions, diseases and the safety of water and food. You usually hear of public health in terms of infectious diseases. You hear about our work in terms of the AIDS epidemic, the Avian flu or some other disease.

But the fact of the matter is that injuries and violence are part of the continuum of health. Violence, particularly gun violence, in Los Angeles County kills more young people under the age of 35 than anything else, including AIDS, cancer, heart disease, or motor-vehicle accidents. It is the leading epidemic of our time and it impacts every segment of a healthy community. People who want to protect their health can't do that if they're intimidated by violence in their communities or in their homes. So we look at it as a public-health issue. Violence in Los Angeles County costs more public-health dollars than any other epidemic.

Q: Who in your field do you admire?

A: There are quite a few. There are so many people in this work. Debra Prothrow-Stith is one. Larry Cohen is another. Father Greg Boyle is my hero and will always be my hero. Connie Rice, although she is a civil rights attorney, certainly promotes the public- health approach. Bo Taylor’s work was amazing and sadly we just lost him.

I think the people I admire most are the people who work on the ground in the neighborhoods. I feel my role is to help them do what they do. The research we do at the university is really designed to make their work more effective.

One of the great things about my moving into a university setting is that I can help bring the community and researchers together so that they can understand each other. The research is absolutely no good if it doesn't help the people working in the community. We need to get them information in a way that they can use it.