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by Jonathan Leithold-Patt, film critic

There is too much violence in Chicago. It is a fact impossible to ignore. Turning on the nightly news or opening up the newspaper is a guaranteed reminder of the senseless deaths that could have, and should have, been prevented. Although there are less homicides in the city than there were during the peak periods of the 1970s and early 1990s, Chicago violence continues to be a problem without sufficient resolution. Will anything work? Does a solution to such ingrained, systemic behavior even exist?

Steve James’s The Interrupters, a 2011 documentary, proffers some kind of answer. It tells of the intrepid Chicago citizens who have made it their mission to quell their neighborhoods’ violence epidemic, “interrupters” who, through the CeaseFire program, attempt to stem crimes and altercations before they are given the chance to happen. Targeting the issue as if it were like any other infectious disease, they seek out its roots on a micro level, working one-on-one with the people and communities most affected in the hopes of diffusing the vicious ethos that grips them.

The interrupters are not corporate men, politicians, police, inspirational speakers, or psychiatrists. The reason they are effective is because they’re not any different from the gang members, hoodlums, and dispossessed they speak to. All of them have come from these neighborhoods; they have variously employed and enforced gang activity, committed murder, and served lengthy prison sentences. These people don’t stand above the communities they’re trying to help; they stand with them, on their level, extending their hand because they, too, were once seized by the influence of violence. The credibility they have with the citizens of Englewood, then, is considerable. These are folks who have the neighborhoods’ trust.

One of the key interrupters we follow in the film is Ameena Matthews, the daughter of notorious Chicago gang leader Jeff Fort. After breaking away from the streets, marrying, and having a child, Ameena finds herself devoted to stopping the violence she was once helplessly caught up in. Now with newfound rectitude and purpose, she places herself amongst a bevy of troubled youth, some who, like a teenaged girl she begins to mentor, have already run into conflict, and some who are inevitably not far from it. Her approach is caustic yet human, blunt and unyielding yet intimate. Cobe Williams, another interrupter, is more soft-spoken but no less efficient – he becomes involved with a particularly temperamental man whom he is able to talk down from a planned vengeance. The third interrupter, Eddie Bocanegra, teaches art to kids as an outlet for their emotions. All three represent a pacifistic approach to tackling the insidious, self-perpetuating sequence of violence, a cycle born out as much by street mentality and codes of honor as through destitution and lack of opportunity. The interrupters don’t counter violence with yet more violence, or throw money heedlessly at the matter. Instead they talk, face-to-face, person-to-person, willing and able to make a change through the power of direct human contact. That change may come slowly, but it is a step, thankfully, in the right direction.

[Note from Chicago Appleseed: We at Chicago Appleseed understand that the overuse of incarceration only increases recidivism and pushes individuals further into criminal behavior, including violence. In our work we try to develop options diverting people away from incarceration and toward more proven methods of crime and violence prevention (drug and mental health treatment, criminal behavioral therapy, and more) throughout the criminal justice process. We work toward increasing  and improving these options for diversion at the back end, by working to implement and introduce improvements to Specialty Courts, and toward the front end, advocating for reform of the bond court, times to preliminary hearing, and street-level diversion programs akin to the ones the Interrupters carry out.]