“Can’t Use Old Keys to Open New Doors”: Relational Desistance Mechanisms Within Community Violence Interventions

Abstract

Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs show promising results in reducing health disparities such as firearm injury and violence. However, the process by which these programs bring about positive change is less well due to program variations and the focus of existing studies. Hence, program components and strategies used in day-to-day community violence intervention work are less clear. To address this gap, this study used in-depth interview data focused on understanding the early engagement of participants in an east coast United States community violence intervention program (n = 32). Questions focused on the process by which credible messengers as outreach workers motivate at-risk individuals to join the program, obtaining descriptions of the personal mentoring and cognitive change efforts driving desistance. Three key themes emerged: outreach workers use their own “lived experience” or self-narratives to build trust and motivate at-risk individuals to join and stick with programing; outreach workers and participants form a unique relationship through which participants are buoyed by belonging to a new “family”; and participants acquire new skills and prosocial peer networks that help them navigate away from the streets. Together, these processes support at-risk individuals through what might be best understood as a social movement as opposed to an individualistic process of “corrections” or reform.

Introduction

Urban firearm violence is a major concern across the U.S. and has major impact on the well-being of families and communities.^1,2 Preventing firearm violence is complex and further complicated by evidence suggesting that deeply embedded subcultural norms (or “street logic,” ³ ) guide peer networks and violent behaviors,^4,5 making intervention difficult. While mental health is certainly an important factor, it’s important to recognize that firearm violence results from a complex interplay of multiple factors including community and social dynamics. ⁶ This broader perspective helps move beyond seeing the issue as solely grounded in mental health or any single cause. Public health-based community violence intervention programs (CVI) have emerged as a direct response to young people at high risk of firearm violence, grounded in the understanding that firearm violence is shaped by a range of interconnected factors, dynamics, and causes. These programs take a more holistic approach, aiming to address the underlying complexities rather than attributing the problem to a single source.

CVI relies on several components to interrupt the transmission of violence and reduce the “spread” of violence at the community level: identifying those individuals at elevated risk for perpetrating or being a victim of violence, changing their thinking and attitudes, and further altering the larger community norms that promote violence. ⁷ CVI often employ and rely on outreach workers (OWs) to actively recruit at-risk vulnerable and young people for their programing, which can include various forms of case management. Eligibility for programing varies, but typically is based on various criteria related to involvement in violence, including recent firearm-violence victimization, felony incarceration, history of firearm carrying or violence, or involvement in gangs or street-level drugs sales.^7,8

The backgrounds of the employed OW staff are crucial for the implementation of CVI and their ultimate goal of reducing firearm violence, as their street-life experience helps build trust with, motivate, and guide participants away from antisocial networks.^{9 -11} These workers have typically either experienced events which led to interaction with the carceral state, or have lived in the communities where they work, with exposure to specific problems as a part of that community. This builds a deep organic trust that exists independent of the CVI program, and contributes to worker credibility. The term “credible messengers” is used to capture a key characteristic that undergirds the authenticity of program staff as they work to engage program participants and pull them away from street life. ¹² In most CVI strategies and programs, OWs meet with their participants multiple times each month, providing support and referral to services. ⁷ They are available around the clock to assist participants, accompany them to court, visit them in jail, and support them—and their families—in crisis and non-crisis situations. CVI program developers have highlighted the importance of recruiting OWs who are trusted within the target neighborhoods, recognizing this as among the keys to the success of the program. However, more research is needed to further explore and confirm the full impact of this strategy.^10,13

While knowledge about CVI has grown over the past 2 decades, significant gaps remain in our understanding. Research has demonstrated the positive impact of well-executed CVI programs, particularly in reducing firearm violence.^14,15 However, more work is needed to deepen our understanding of the theory of change behind these programs, especially regarding how CVI workers engage and motivate at-risk individuals to join the program and sustain behavioral change. Central to this gap is the need for insights into the techniques that CVI workers employ to foster personal transformation and facilitate participants’ sustained desistance from violence. While desistance scholarship over the last 2 decades has provided valuable theories and frameworks for understanding how individuals cease criminal behavior, there remains a lack of focused application of these theories to the practice of CVI work.^16,17 Furthermore, desistance theories do not adequately address the mechanisms that help to sustain desistance over time. ¹⁸ This paper seeks to fill these gaps by systematically applying desistance theory to CVI practice, to better understand the change processes that drive successful CVI engagement and building a CVI community, as well as the maintenance of desistance by participants after enrolling in the CVI program. As such, the key research question is: How do OWs engage with participants and motivate them to go straight and start the process of desisting from crime? This question is examined from both the perspective of the CVI OW and the CVI participant.

Promoting Desistance From Violence in CVI Programs

A central aspect of CVI work and the role of OWs can be characterized as a process of informal assisted desistance ¹⁹ whereby role models help individuals to “co-produce desistance.” ²⁰ Desistance from crime is defined as the process of abstaining from crime among individuals who had previously engaged in sustained patterns of offending. ²¹ Co-production of desistance generally refers to the processes that embedded within the social context of life—those that involve prosocial relationships where the individual who is moving through the phases of desistance is supported by others who help the focal individual move into and maintain a crime free lifestyle. More specifically, theorists such as Weaver, ²² Maruna, ²¹ and Ugelvik ²³ posit that supportive relations that engender mutual trust provide a re-inclusion mechanism. Across the criminological and sociological literature, there are several theories that mention relationships and social bonds as important aspects that can buoy positive change. According to Laub and Sampson’s age-graded informal social control theory,^24,25 structural and social factors are the primary drivers in desistance from street crime. Their theory emphasizes turning points and transitions (such as marriage, employment, etc.) that accompany life stages and maturation. ²⁴ These turning points and transitions may bring offenders to the realization that their previous patterns of behavior, such as engaging in violence or criminal activity, no longer align with their evolving life goals or the responsibilities and commitments that come with these changes. Although Laub and Sampson’s theory discusses that the establishment and/or strengthening of social bonds helps individuals sustain desistance, they do not posit prosocial relationships as central to or a key aspect of desistance.

In contrast, other theories give more primacy to the relational aspects of desistance. These theories tend to emphasize the interplay of social structure and human agency. Maruna^21,26 focuses on psychosocial dynamics, which include social relations, that bring individuals to initial desistance and sustain desistance. Maruna’s work indicates that initial desistance is often triggered by an individual’s ability to create a sense of meaning and purpose that challenges their former identity tied to criminality. By constructing a “redemption script” within a reconstructed identity, individuals reframe their past behaviors, viewing them as part of a journey toward self-improvement. This narrative identity change toward a prosocial self, which is a cognitive and agentic process, importantly, is often fueled by supportive relationships, who help individuals see themselves as capable of change (see also Clements ²⁷ ). Regarding identity changes, “making good” and giving back is an important part of the process. Here, Maruna focus on generativity and how “redeemed” individuals often find a new calling and purpose in generating positivity in their own lives as well as in that of their communities. ²¹ One can likely see how Maruna’s theory applies both to the OWs employed by CVI programs—who are in the stage of maintaining their desistance (ie, secondary desistance) and are literally giving back to their communities through their work—and CVI participants who are likely only entering into the initial stages of crime desistance.

A key strategy for facilitating CVI engagement and promoting the desistance process for participants relates to the concept of “knifing off.” Laub and Sampson ²⁵ defined “knifing off” as a process to sever ties with criminogenic situations, antisocial influences, and identities. Per their age-graded theory of informal social control, the formation of new bonds generates the opportunity for new roles (eg, marriage, stable employment), and it can assist an individual in the desistance process by “knifing [them] off” from their criminal past and providing the motivation, structure, and supervision to desist. ²⁴ Maruna and Roy expanded this concept and emphasized the importance of “knifing of” as a precursor for individuals to construct “redemption scripts” from their criminal pasts.^21,28 For individuals with violent crime histories, “knifing off” can involve creating physical distance from crime neighborhoods, cutting ties with antisocial peer networks, and generating a more positive identity by reconstructing their past selves. Maruna and Roy ²⁸ have challenged some of the presumptions around “geographical cures” and desistance, however, arguing that physical relocation from one’s community can lead to isolation and estrangement from the pro-social attachments necessary for desistance (eg, family of origin). In fact, Maruna and Roy ²⁸ recommended more studies about the day-to-day process of “knifing off,” including the actual strategies used by people in desistance who are trying to change their lives.

Extending this work to further emphasize relationships, Weaver ²² suggests that individuals seek meaningful ways to refer to themselves (the creation of an identity) and that this reflexive nature (in that one recognizes the forces of socialization) cannot be disentangled from the social context, where social ties (ie, relationships) can take center stage. With regard to social ties, Weaver stresses how desistance tends to unfold in the context of networks and that people desist together. Weaver’s ²² research highlights the important role that peer networks can play in the desistance process (see also Warr ²⁹ ). Weaver emphasizes how participation in “desistance-focused groups” allowed at-risk individuals to construct a new prosocial identity and develop a sense of “shared redemption” with peers who came from a similar criminal background. ¹⁷ CVI teams seek to create a desistance-oriented communities akin to Weaver’s idea of “desistance-focused groups.” ¹⁷ This collaborative model further helps at-risk individuals to transition away from the streets and from antisocial peer groups toward a community with committed to change and transformation.

In this sense, Maruna^30,31 has argued that desistance can be understood as the basis of a new social movement. Maruna argues that the role of macro factors—in particular socio-political structures that stigmatize and discriminate against people with justice system involvement ³² —should be better integrated into theoretical understandings of desistance. In this framework, desistance becomes less an individual journey than a collective one. Reintegration with the mainstream involves changes on the individual level and in a person’s micro environment (eg, family, employer), but also from changes in the wider macro political environment—with greater acceptance of and opportunities for people with convictions to integrate into the mainstream. Maruna ³⁰ argues that such changes are most likely to result from a social movement led by people who are desisting from crime (for a parallel with addiction recovery, see White ³³ ). In this way, CVI role models (eg, the OWs and likely most CVI staff) can be seen as impacting their individual clients, but also the way that the wider society views those with criminal backgrounds. In essence, understanding desistance as a collective process helps to elucidate the comprehensive theory of change for CVI to include community-level norm change, initiated by CVI workers who act as catalysts, inspiring participants to not only transform their own lives but also contribute to a more prosocial society. Using this relational and collective desistance framework, the current study seeks to unpack, through qualitative exploration, the relational processes in which OWs engage and serve CVI participants on their desistance pathways.

Methods

This study is one part of a larger project that sought to examine the processes of desistance from street violence as they unfold between at-risk individuals and CVI outreach workers, involving over 500 h of field observations of outreach activities. The study was conducted in North Philadelphia, with interviews taking place between January 2021 and August 2022. The nature of the study is qualitative, seeking to understand the experiences of people in the early stages of desistance actively working with mentors in the CVI program. For the purposes of this analysis, we will draw exclusively on 42 narrative interviews with CVI participants (N = 32) and OWs (N = 10). The questions guiding this research are,

1. 1: How do Community-Violence Intervention Outreach Workers build relationship and motivate at-risk individuals during the engagement phase?

2. 2: How do at-risk Community-Violence Intervention participants utilize Outreach workers during the early stages of joining a Community-Violence Intervention program?

The main purpose of the CVI mentor interviews were to serve as context and supplement the CVI participant interviews. More specifically, the purpose of the CVI mentor interviews was to learn details about the strategies that mentors use to support CVI participants in reaching their goals.

While this study did not expressly follow the SRQR framework developed by O’Brien et al, ³⁴ having thoroughly reviewed the checklist (included in Supplemental Material), we find our project to be within the guidelines laid out in this work, conforming to best practices for qualitative research. The research was approved by the Temple University Institutional Review Board.

Eligibility Criteria and Sampling

The CVI program from which the sample was drawn has been operating in Philadelphia, PA since 2011. The program targets North Philadelphia, which has entrenched poverty, high rates of firearm violence, and a large population of vulnerable youth. The CVI team employs OWs, violence interrupters, and victim advocates. The OWs have deep knowledge of and experience with North Philadelphia neighborhoods, and the majority are widely known residents of the CVI target areas. In 2024, there were more than 250 active participants in this CVI program, mostly young and male. The age of participants ranges from 16 to 48, and enrollment ranges from few days to over 1 year. More specifically, of the 250 active participants, 235 (94%) were male, the mean age was 24, and 200 (80%) identified as Black, 45 (18%) as Hispanic, and 5 (2%) identified as other race.

CVI participants were eligible to participate in this study if they met the following criteria: (1) males between 16 and 40 years old; (2) had a basic proficiency in speaking English; (3) at least one arrest for a gun crime, either as a juvenile or an adult; and (4) less than 12 months of CVI participation. CVI OWs were eligible to participate if they had more than 12 months of steady CVI employment and stable desistance (no new arrests or convictions). Both CVI participants and mentors received a $20 gift card for completing the interviews. Although we did not have any explicit exclusion criteria, we excluded any participants with active psychiatric or substance-induced symptoms that would prevent them from providing cohesive answers.

All CVI participants were recruited from a Philadelphia CVI program’s 2022 caseload, with a focus on participants in early stages of engagement (fewer than 12 months of participation in CV; N = 175). Engagement in the program entails regular mentoring support and check-ins from OWs, as well as defining and moving toward mutually agreed upon goals, broadly working toward participants moving away from street life. This can include obtaining a GED, seeking gainful employment, changing personal habits and social networks, and a host of other things. Among the 52 CVI participants invited to participate, 15 declined and 5 began but did not complete interviews, yielding a final sample of 32. At the time of recruitment, this CVI had 12 mentors, 10 of whom met the eligibility criteria and agreed to be interviewed for this project (the remaining 2 were unavailable).

We initially sought to randomly recruit participants (using an online randomizer) from the CVI caseload, which was provided by mentors and included all eligible participants who were in the early stage of CVI engagement. However, mentors identified challenges with some of the randomly selected participants, as several were incarcerated, hospitalized with violent injuries, or even recently deceased. In those cases, mentors suggested eligible replacement participants that the research team then approached. The first author was (and continues to be) deeply integrated in the CVI team, and his relationships, coupled with the mentors’ efforts, were central to both recruitment and interview-scheduling efforts. In particular, mentors were able to leverage the existing trust they had with the community and motivate CVI participants to engage in the research.

Data Collection

Working closely with senior-level OWs and OW managers, the research team co-produced 2 semi-structured interview protocols that drew from both the desistance literature ²¹ and insights provided by CVI mentors. The semi-structured protocols for both interviews were grounded in a narrative criminological approach (see Maruna and Liem ³⁵ ), and the research team used a variety of interviewing techniques, including “walk-along interviews,” (conducted 12 walk-along interviews) which have been found effective to gain participant trust and comfort when discussing potentially difficult topics. ³⁶ Interviews for both CVI participants and mentors took approximately 35 to 40 min. Consent was obtained for all CVI participants and CVI mentors who agreed to partake in the study and all the interviews were—with participants’ permission—audio recorded. The first author—who has over 15 years of clinical social work experience with trauma and violence—conducted all the interviews.

Analytic Strategy

A multidisciplinary, 3-person team developed the codebook utilized in the thematic content analysis of the qualitative data. The codebook was initially based on a-priori knowledge of the narrative desistance literature; however, additional codes were added in an inductive fashion as the coding commenced.

The thematic analysis of the narrative data involved 3, independent coders. The first and second author led the initial coding process: familiarization with the data, generation of first cycle codes, organization of codes into relevant categories aligned with the research question, refining codes for second cycle coding and applying refined codes to the data. First cycle coding for both CVI participants and CVI mentors addressed themes and factors (eg, triggers to desist, motivators for joining CV, supportive relations, turning points, “hooks for change,” etc.) related to desistance and outreach work. The first coding cycle’s primary focus was on theming the data in accordance with the research question. ³⁷

The second coding cycle, involving all 3 independent coders, focused in greater detail on perspectives concerning the CVI participants’ identity, relationships with others (including the CVI mentors), and their position in the social world. ³⁷ During the second coding cycle, the team also focused on specific skills and techniques that the CVI mentors used to support the desistance process for CVI participants. All 3 coders separately applied the coding schema to the data and coded independently before jointly comparing notes.

To enhance the project’s validity and rigor, the coding team used memoing, member checks, and critical inquiry groups. ³⁸ The first author systematically documented thoughts and observations throughout the research process into memos, which included impressions about the interviews, connections between the data and criminological theories, and reflections on the interview protocol. These memos were then reviewed during the analysis process and helped in developing themes and finding patterns in the data. Member checks (where a select group of research participants are invited to provide feedback on themes) helped the research team both confirm some of the main findings as well as clarify a few misconceptions.

Lastly, we used inquiry groups to reduce biases and challenge assumptions about the data. During the inquiry groups, the team discussed interpretations of the data, applied theoretical perspectives, and worked through differences in perspective about the findings and understandings of such. The inquiry group consisted of the first author, a CVI mentor supervisor, and a graduate student who have spent the last year in CVI research projects. Having a multidisciplinary lens enhanced the inquiry groups and allowed for a rich discussion about the meaning of the findings. During the 3 inquiry group meetings, we discussed the data, theories about desistance, negotiated interpretations and perspectives, and built consensus. Through this process, theme saturation was achieved.

Findings

Three key themes emerged that align with a relational perspective of desistance, highlighting the primacy of social relations and reflexive processes that move participants to constructing (or reconstructing) their identity as dependent on their connections and support from others. First, CVI participants and CVI OWs discussed the early stages of CVI engagement as of significant importance in offering an alternative to street crime. During this phase, CVI OWs used their own desistance narratives to engage, motivate, and promote behavior change among at-risk individuals who seemed open to CVI participation. At-risk individuals who engaged in CVI work discussed the paradoxical challenge of “knifing off” anti-social peer networks while simultaneously struggling with alienation and loneliness. While the depth of description varied across the research participants, CVI participants generally shared how OW persistence and welcoming them into the CVI community allowed the emergence of a sense of belonging in a new “family.” The sense of belonging in this new community allowed CVI participants to practice new social and relationship skills, as well as develop a support network to navigate toward a new life away from street crime. CVI participants suggested that the formation of a new self was dependent on the belonging to the CVI family, which allowed the development of new skills and relational resources, but also dependent on the “knifing off” of their old peers and community.

Knifing Off Street Ties

The participants often described their lives as generally being alienating and lonely, especially those participants who had recently returned home from incarceration, and participating in CVI helped alleviate some of the pain associated with such isolation:

When I came home, I was drifting around a bit. Trying to land a job, connect with folks, whatever. When I came home, my girl wasn’t really there for me like that. I knew that she had other guys when I was on the inside and honestly, it didn’t bother me. I was kinda not connected to anyone when I came home until Q started coming around. I met him in court because my judge wanted me to be on his program. I looked at it as a chance for me to maybe turn things around and I did. But it came out of sticking with Q and through him I met other guys who just got home and needed to turn a corner or whatever so in the end I started turning more and more to them for support as Q was busy working with the newer guys in the program (Participant 034).

Participants often described life in North Philly as isolated and difficult. Given that many people’s lives in North Philly are frequently damaged by generational poverty and all that accompanies it (eg, trauma, bereavement), this characterization was unsurprising. However, because of their “damaged lives” ³⁹ many participants we interviewed described first finding a community and comradery amongst their peers in the streets:

I never had much of a home, you know. My pop was out, never knew him. My mom and grandma pretty much raised me, my grandma died when I was young and my mom never got over that. The grief of that really took her and I was by myself and I brought my all that with me and when the streets presented themselves I found my community or crew whatever there (Participant 21).

In many situations, participants felt that the only family they have are their antisocial peer networks on the streets:

This sounds like from some movie but I was really raised on the streets man that’s where I came up and where I learned everything about being a man and how to deal with life and all other bullshit so when I came home all the same people where there waiting for me and they be up to the same stuff and I am back here thinking that I am done but how do you walk away from that? (Participant 14).

Many participants felt closer to their street family than their family of origin:

My brothers are all the guys that I grew up with they are the ones that be there for me and when I need something they come through not my mom my dad or anyone ever was there for me like that (Participant 28).

Most of the CVI participants interviewed for this study understood that these previous, largely anti-social peer networks were no longer serving them well, and they want to disengage from these collectives:

A couple people I had to cut off. I didn’t want to but you want to move forward sometimes you got to. . .Can’t use old keys to open up new doors (Participant 17).

It comes with separating yourself from other people. Cutting everybody off, I had to cut everybody off like (Participant 20).

I actually changed my crowd. I don’t be around anyone really besides the program and my family. I stay away from my homies (Participant 30)

Indeed, the first step for several participants was to engage in a process of semi-seclusion from peers and associates:

I used to stick to myself. Like, mostly be in the house, especially when I came home. . . Like it was not safe for to be out there. . . or not that it wasn’t safe but like I knew that it would be bad for me to be out there, so I just stayed inside and you know like was by myself all the time so yeah it got to be quite isolating and lonely. . . luckily I had my games though [video games] (Participant 11).

The idea that your personhood and identity is tied to your social networks appeared often in the interviews, and several participants discussed how the key to successfully forming a new self was to stay away from old networks:

I’ll say that the company that I kept was my access to the streets. They were like my key to open doors that wouldn’t open for me. So once I realized that, like I won’t say that it was their fault because I was choosing to do what I was doing. But they were helping me. . . But they were like, not helping but I mean . . . maybe we should separate, maybe we should, we got to take some time away from each other, and I need to build myself up, I need to figure out who I am and what I want. And they need to figure out who they are and what they want. And that’s okay, it took a lot out of me, it took a lot in me to realize it is okay to fall out with people, especially if you aren’t good for each other (Participant 16).

Participants described how old networks and friends could be obstacles for finding the time to reflect and focus on a new path in life and toward a different future:

Yeah, I had to cut family off. I had to cut friends off. I had to cut like everybody off, in order for me to not go down the same road and just like switch it up. And then once I got my focus back (Participant 8).

Yet, many said the most challenging part of desisting from crime was disengagement from 1 street “family.” Participants frequently discussed how the “knifing off” of the streets was associated with negative as well as positive aspects:

When I came home and decided that the streets were not for me, I just stayed inside. . . all day, basically. I took my kid to school and then went straight back home and be inside the whole day. . . I did that for weeks. I wouldn’t even call my n**** like about what’s going on like, but just be on my own. . . and yeah, it was quiet but in a good way and in a not so good way too. I mean, I could get cabin fever and stuff like that spending so much time just with my thoughts and whatnot (Participant 23).

OWs were familiar with the challenges and risks with “knifing off” previous peer networks and attachments:

The problem is that when they come home, they do need their homies more than ever maybe. They could be coming home to beef and the only way they now how to navigate all that is like they been doing all they lives, but here we [CVI program] are telling them to step away from all that: “Be different”; “You can do more”; “Think about your kids”; “You don’t want to do more time” and all that. That’s a whole lot to be thinking about and then not having no one there to back you? This is Philly, man. You need people in your corner (OW 5).

Having knifed off the streets themselves, OWs used their own experiences and change narratives to encourage and guide their participants through this difficult phase:

We try to tell them all that. “I got you, we got you, you don’t need the streets, cause they rob you of all that you do care about.” And, to get them to see that we work hard to keep them away from those who pull them back into the streets, we help them navigate all that (OW 5).

The challenges of leaving the streets and instead transition toward a new life is characterized by both CVI participants and OWs as a type of recovery process. There are relapses and setbacks, similar to the experiences of anyone who is trying to change and disengage from something that has been a major part of their lives. Instead, CVI participants struggle with mixed feelings: wanting to leave the streets, but also feeling a desire to remain “in the life” (Participant 13). To guide CVI participants through this delicate existential transition, the program provides a substitute peer network that helps:

Most of the homies out here are with other homies or hanging out together or what have you. I was always more comfortable by myself, but that can be dangerous out here, so I hung out with homies who were into the streets and all that. I guess some of it was to have protection. You’re harder to target if you’re with a group. It took a while for me to get into the [CVI] program, but after a while it kind gave me similar protection, you know. I’d go out with them and put up their posters and do things with them so in my neighborhood people started seeing me as one of them ‘gun social workers’ or something like that. And, at that point, it was easier to stay away from homies on the streets (Participant 29).

The OWs also described how they use their own desistance narratives and experiences to gather insights into the mindset of participants. One OW stated that he is deeply familiar with existential malaises, like alienation and loneliness, commonly experienced in North Philadelphia, and that he draws on that knowledge to relate and emotionally connect with individuals:

You gotta understand the mindset of street dudes. They don’t know what love is. They come from the same place that I came from poverty and was pushed to the streets and that be all that they really do know so when we come and try to talk with them they don’t know what we really be about and they don’t trust that we are for real or that we really care like that about them. So, the first thing we do is to be consistent with them. Show them through our actions that we really be there for them, and we not going anywhere, and, after a while, some of them will trust that and get with the program (OW 5).

OWs also stressed how participants need a new family and community as they transition away from the streets, especially because of the harsh realities of North Philadelphia and the impact of such on participants emotional lives:

Growing up where we are from, you are angry, angry because of the environment you are in and angry frustrated because of the things that surround you and I see our role to help them bring that anger towards something positive, but we need, like, a team to get that done to channel all that towards something positive (OW 6).

Connecting and Building a Bond

OWs described how they use their first-hand experiences of navigating the challenges

of street life to identify, engage, and motivate those at risk to leave the streets. The OWs discussed how growing up in the same communities where they work provides them with a natural connection to the at-risk youth and young adults they approach. However, they still described needing to use and sell their own desistance narratives to build trusting and supportive relationships. These personal narratives allowed the OWs to speak the language of the streets, understand the dangers and struggles of street life in North Philadelphia, and express genuine compassion to build a bond with their participants. In the words of 1 CVI OW, “I see myself in these young’uns. I used to be them. . .” (OW 3).

Another OW stressed that successful engagement hinges on emotionally connecting with at-risk individuals,

You have to show them that there are benefits with being in the program [CVI]. Sometimes it’s about helping them find jobs and do all that, but at the beginning it’s just to show them love, man. Show that they you been there and that you feel them and know that the struggle is real and that what they are going through is not easy (OW 4).

CVI participants discussed how other young people as well as OWs engaged them in the CVI. As 1 participant with less then 1 month of CVI involvement expressed:

Just, just, just like the motivation of, like, I see other people just think, they think like I think, that we can put our minds together – if we think together, work together, and now we come together as one. Now we got- now we a unit, now. I’m not just one person just talking. When you surround yourself with people that got the same mindset, a change gotta happen. And I feel as though, when I’m like, we motivate each other. We come up with ideas or things, solutions. . . . And it’s like when you, when you around people that can motivate you like that, and I get that from him [other CVI participant]. I feel his spirit like. He’s like, he’s like a, I call it like a guardian angel. Like we keep each other motivated (Participant 11).

OW’s explained how, while they use their own desistance narratives to engage and motivate at-risk individuals to join the CVI, it is more effective to rely on the CVI collective to engage new and potential CVI participants. Once a potential participant realizes that he is “among homies or just friends who are doing all this together and are like in it together,” the assigned OW doesn’t necessarily have to rely so single-handily on his/her own narrative to evoke motivation. Instead, the sense of comradery and connection usually “helps someone get their head straight and out of the game” (OW 3).

Additionally, by working with an OW, CVI participants said that they felt they became part of something greater than themselves, and this helped motivate them to change their lives and desist from crime. They discussed how they were accountable, not only to their assigned OW, but also to other people who were trying to desist because they went out on the streets with them, canvassed, put up posters with non-violence messaging, and learned about the harms of firearm violence. They also discussed how they felt a sense of camaraderie with the OWs as well as the other CVI participants in the process of this transition.

Participants talked about the sense of belonging and camaraderie that characterized their experience on the CVI team:

It’s somewhat like being on a team. Being as though we know the streets and can connect on that and on having been locked up, we have lots in common both those who run it [CVI outreach workers] and us in it [participants]. Those connections are also powerful because we have a common goal – staying away from the streets (Participant 023).

I go volunteering with them. I help them canvass and put up posters all around North Philly. It’s almost like I belong to a team and I feel like one of them. (Participant 042).

So the people in this program, you know, they’ve been sort of where you’ve been like they’ve but then they’ve turned their lives around, worked hard and now they’re doing this program. You see them as sort of role models (Participant 011).

Likewise, OWs said they focused much of their attention and strategies to ensure that newer CVI participants established connections and relations with more seasoned CVI participants and staff:

When they get involved in [CVI program] and get over the initial hump or fear of trying something new, I stay on them, but I also make sure that they meet other participants and other workers [CVI OWs] so that they feel that we in this together. And when they do see that, I don’t have to hold them that accountable, but we all stay on them and they feel that (OW 1).

The sense of belonging was often linked directly to the role models that OWs provided to participants. The CVI program, staffed by credible messengers and returning citizens, provided more than a supportive community and acted as a surrogate family for at-risk participants and offered mentoring, a sense of purpose, and everyday guidance on how to rebuild their lives after coming home or deciding to “quit the game” (participant 12).

Furthermore, the CVI mentors were mindful about how successful desistance is a social and relational process and that CVI participants need a wider network of connections, attachments, and prosocial relations than only those via their assigned CVI OW. Thus, CVI mentors strived hard to model everything from engaging in small talk, start building new relations, and how to remain consistent with your new peers. As such, CVI OWs welcomed participants into a new family:

We [CVI participants] came from the same place, the same predicament. You know, I’m saying so if you can see somebody else doing it, it makes it of course it makes it easy. Like they did it. Mean I gotta find it in me to be like, you know what I’m saying. I could be able to do this (Participant 16).

I know, what kind of advice he be bringing and things he can do with hisself. And if he can do that, and inspire me and I’m older than him? I think he got a special touch (Participant 11).

CVI participants expressed how they had never had anyone to rely on for helpful advice in their lives and instead described lonely and disenchanted lives:

Before, I’m just like, kinda on my own, and not really, I don’t have feedback. I didn’t have nobody telling me, “That’s wrong, that’s right, you’re doing great, you’re doing bad.” But, now with this program, I have somebody that’s like, “Oh, how did that go? Oh, that’s great.” I actually feel like somebody care now. And it makes me feel like it’s worth changing, it’s worth being better than how I’ve been in the past couple of years. I actually have a five-year-old daughter, and she needs me more than anybody, like, she needs me more than I need myself. So I have to be a productive and positive role model for her. And [the CVI program], it has been, I will say my, it has been my role model, like the whole program itself, everybody that I came in contact with has been helpful (Participant 9)

Essentially, the CVI strategy, through consistent, dedicated role modeling, outreach and engagement, created an opportunity for bonding and attachments that reduced the isolation caused by leaving the streets and old networks.

Beyond Love: Provision of Survival Techniques

Finally, participants emphasized that the support they received from OWs was not just emotional in nature: they also provided crucial social and structural support, as a real family would. While care and belonging were described as being essential, these were also complemented by tangible assistance:

Having someone really care for you definitely helps, but then I also need actual jobs and whatnot to turn myself around, to break away. It’s like you can’t really become someone different, or new, unless you cut off parts of who you used to be and having a job helps because that gives me a natural out (Participant 14).

I mean, they reached out, they good with the resources, finding jobs, you know what I mean? Good communication partners, they team up with you to come up, things like that. Boom. (Participant 16).

To participants, the OW and their extensive network of supports play a pivotal role by providing CVI participants with new opportunities to continue to build prosocial networks and in turn, build practical skills. For instance, by connecting CVI participants with vocational training programs and employers, OWs help participants develop practical skills for employment. These job opportunities, in turn, facilitate the formation of new prosocial connections, relationships that promote positive social behaviors and attitudes. This new social capital continues to accumulate as the participant maintains connection to their OW and the larger CVI environment. As a participant’s prosocial network grows, so does the journey through positive identity transformation in the process of ceasing criminal behavior.

I mean, when I started this it was kinda just me, you know? Because of all that been going on, my family and I were not really tight like that anymore, and when I came home, they were like, “Naw, you need to stand on your own. You grown, and you have to take this and move with it.” So I only had myself for a while, but I had it in my head that I was not going back [to prison], and then I had seen them in their bus around, and I was curious. So when when they be coming around, I started talking to X, and one thing led to another, and he found me a job before I even was sure that I was going to roll with them like that in the program or whatever. And before I knew it, I had like a buncha new dudes that I could chat with, you know, on the job and whatnot, and once that happened, the positivity kind just kept coming (Participant 28).

Discussion

The current study examined the role of CVI OWs in assisting CVI participants in the early stages of engagement with a CVI program and their joint efforts to promote desistance from street violence. The findings revealed several key insights about how CVI participants use OWs, or mentors, and the wider CVI community as a means to distance themselves from antisocial peer networks, form a new “family” with OWs and other participants, and in the context of those relationships, develop the necessary skills to move away from street crime.

The findings from the current project have theoretical as well as practice implications. From a theoretical perspective, the findings support recent reframings of the desistance process as less of an individual journey and more of a social or collective effort.^18,23,31 Weaver ²² argues that, like offending, desistance often takes place in groups or networks. Desistance has a contagious quality and may “run in families,” even street families. By acting as a type of surrogate family, the CVI project in this study provided participants with a supportive environment where they could practice new relationship skills, observe pro-social behaviors as modeled by OWs, and receive authentic care to counter the negative pull from antisocial groups (see also Roman et al ¹¹ ). By providing a community of trust and love, CVI programing fills an instrumental role in supporting participants in developing new relationship skills and maintain trusting attachments and relations as they strive to distance themselves from the streets. However, OWs also provided clear practical support in helping participants secure employment and break down structural barriers to full reintegration.

The finding that CVI participants in early stages of CVI programing engagement seek support and advice on how to distance themselves from antisocial networks is similar to Roman et al, ¹¹ who found that prosocial networks and relationships can “pull” individuals away from antisocial networks and associated criminal activities. This finding echoes a long history of scholarship that demonstrates the social nature of criminal activities (see example Warr ²⁹ ). CVI participants repeatedly mentioned that CVI social bonds offered them an “out” and excuse to re-organize their time to stay away from the streets. For CVI engagement to operate as a “hook for change,” ⁴⁰ however, such outreach work needs to be timed intentionally to correspond to participant needs. OWs stressed the vulnerabilities, psychosocial, and emotional barriers that new participants must overcome before they are motivated to join. As elaborated by Roman et al, ¹¹ the success of pushes and pulls from antisocial networks depends heavily on the age and developmental phase of the involved individuals.

Another implication of the present study for desistance scholarship involves the way that participants use the CVI to “knife off” antisocial peer groups and criminogenic environments. CVI participants expressed considerable ambivalence about “knifing off,” questioning the benefits of disengaging from old networks despite engaging in prosocial social relations with different groups. Several CVI participants said that when they “knifed off” their street-based associations, they severed the only social ties they had, leading to loneliness and isolation. For this reason, it is crucial for CVI mentors to create trusting relationships with and meaningful connections between CVI participants. Only then can CVI participants feel part of something greater than themselves, rather than, for example, having only developed a “case management” connection with a CVI mentor.

In this way, CVI work could be considered a key aspect of a broader, emerging social movement led by system-impacted individuals to help break down the stigma and social exclusion experienced by people with criminal convictions (see Maruna ³¹ ). Maruna ³⁰ argues that, like with addiction recovery or the neurodiversity movement, collective action by people with lived experience can make desistance easier by changing public perceptions and stereotypes about people with experience of the criminal legal system. One of the key practice implications of this research is that CVI work transcends the individual level of one-to-one service provision. It is not primarily a “reform” or “treatment” program. Although aspects of the intervention involve one-on-one work, the intervention addresses participants’ wider relationships—both with their immediate social ties and inner circle, but also their connections and orientation to the broader community. CVI work recognizes that reintegration is a two-way street, involving change on the part of the community as well as individuals, and their outreach is focused in both directions.

Limitations

This study has several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, the research was conducted in a single neighborhood within a large East Coast city, limiting the geographic scope of the findings. While the goal of qualitative research is not generalizability, it remains uncertain whether the desistance processes and dynamics observed here are consistent across different regions, communities, cultural, or national contexts. The needs of individuals in the process of desistance—and the resources they require to successfully disengage from street life—are likely to vary across settings. This is particularly important given that the United States is a highly individualistic society, yet even within this context, the study revealed that desistance is often driven by social bonds, collective identity, and communal care.

Additionally, interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period marked by heightened social isolation, reduced access to support systems and social services, and significantly elevated rates of gun violence in many US urban centers. These conditions may have amplified participants’ feelings of alienation and loneliness, and their appreciation for the community and connection offered by CVI programs. As such, the pandemic context may have influenced the nature and intensity of the participants’ engagement with CVI and their perspectives on desistance. Future research should delve deeper in the relational dynamics of CVI work, especially between OWs and their participants. In the context of this, future research should explore how OWs manage their own desistance in the context of CVI work. Lastly, future research should explore how relational and social dynamics shift across different time periods and social conditions.

Conclusion

Overall, the findings underscore the critical role that CVI OWs and the broader CVI community play in supporting desistance as a deeply social and relational process. By fostering authentic, trust-based relationships and creating a space where participants can build new identities and relational networks, CVI programs offer more than just individual mentorship—they cultivate a collective movement toward friendships, healing, reintegration, and a new family. This work challenges traditional, more individualistic models of behavior change and highlights the importance of community-driven approaches that address both personal transformation and broader social reintegration. As such, CVI programing represents not only an intervention strategy but also a powerful vehicle for social change led by and for system-impacted individuals.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-inq-10.1177_00469580251361747 – Supplemental material for “Can’t Use Old Keys to Open New Doors”: Relational Desistance Mechanisms Within Community Violence Interventions

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-inq-10.1177_00469580251361747 for “Can’t Use Old Keys to Open New Doors”: Relational Desistance Mechanisms Within Community Violence Interventions by Peter Simonsson, Caterina Gouvis-Roman, Shadd Maruna and Peter Twigg in INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing