By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

This past weekend, Teen Empowerment held its annual Youth Peace Conference at Somerville High School. I had the honor and privilege of briefly sharing the stage with teenagers who are not only future leaders of our community—they are already leaders today. Teen Empowerment is one of the great success stories in our city. We faced an epidemic of drug overdoses, juvenile crime and teen suicides a decade ago that we stopped because our youth stood up. They joined with us and changed the way we approached the problems that plagued our community. The lessons we’ve learned through Teen Empowerment’s success are still relevant today, as we face a nationwide opioid abuse epidemic, and as our country grapples with a criminal justice system that features militarized local law enforcement and systemic discrimination. It’s only by working together and building relationships that we can beat back drug abuse and have an effective police force that works in cooperation with and is part of the community.

When I first took office as mayor, we were dealing with too many problems in a narrow and reactionary way. We knew we couldn’t arrest our way out of crime, or out of addiction. A survived overdose or jail time is not necessarily going to lead someone to make the positive changes they need to put their lives on the right track. These issues are more complex than that, and the tools to address them lie not just in law enforcement but in our educational system, our health care, and in social services for families. These different arenas are all connected. We needed a proactive approach, not a reactionary and solely punitive approach. But no matter the changes we made, we’d still be at a disadvantage in addressing our problems if the whole community wasn’t involved—including our kids.

That’s where Teen Empowerment came in. An intense selection process brought on board youth organizers who run community events like the Youth Peace Conference, building their own self-esteem while bringing in their peers from across the city and engaging them in discussions with not only each other but our public safety officials and adults about challenges facing our community. This is the key to effective community policing. The disconnect between a community and its public safety officers happens when a group is defined as “other” by another group. It’s when we cease to see people as part of our community and rather as something apart. It becomes harder to listen. It becomes harder to understand another perspective and, ultimately, becomes too easy to dehumanize the members of the group. With its youth organizers leading the way, Teen Empowerment tears down those walls. It makes it clear that whether you are a student, a police officer, a parent or any person in our community, you are Somerville and you are with us.

The results were dramatic. Two years ago, Dr. Russell Schutt, currently the chairman of UMass-Boston’s sociology department, undertook an evaluation of Teen Empowerment in Somerville. He concluded that the program was responsible for a 50 percent decrease in juvenile crime in the city’s most affected neighborhoods, and that an unusually high number of fatal youth overdoses and suicides between 2000 and 2005 dropped to zero in subsequent years. Dr. Schutt also found that Teen Empowerment youth organizers have higher levels of employability, greatly improved self-esteem and are more civically engaged compared to their peers. “Improving relations between police and youth had been a frequent focus of Teen Empowerment events, and there was considerable evidence that positive changes had occurred as a result, including greater adoption of an attitude of forgiveness,” Schutt wrote in his evaluation. “Some community leaders and former staff felt that relations had so improved that Teen Empowerment could focus more attention on other issues.”

The issue of police and community relations is still a focus today, though, and a nationwide one at that, as is the issue of opioid addiction. Fortunately, Teen Empowerment is still working with us to build healthy relationships between our youth, our community and police. On Feb. 1, they held the first annual Somerville Police Department-Teen Empowerment basketball game. And starting this month, the Police Department and Teen Empowerment will bring the community and police together for a series of walking dialogues, where the community can share their thoughts and identify concerns in the neighborhood, so the police can act to improve the quality of life for the community.

This is what Teen Empowerment, our Police Department and our city is about: the understanding that there are no issues that the police and city officials can solve by themselves, but by working together as a community, there is no issue that we cannot solve. Every person who has ever been a youth organizer for Teen Empowerment deserves our thanks and gratitude, as do the staff of Teen Empowerment and our police officers who have embraced this community policing approach. I invite you to contact Teen Empowerment or the Somerville Police to learn more and get involved in the upcoming walking dialogues, and help us continue this model of success.