Who You Are Without It
The gun as armor and identity. What carrying tells everybody else, what it tells you, and who is there when it is not on you.
Courses · Juvenile Community Violence Intervention
JCVI: Gun Offenders Program
For young men 15 to 25 referred on a gun charge or at risk of gun violence. The twenty three weeks of the Youth Intervention Program, unchanged, with eleven lessons added where a gun changes the conversation. For young men under 18 it starts inside the juvenile detention center, often the first place a program can reach him after a gun arrest.
23weeks, the full core program
11gun-specific lessons, each with its own written work
100documented service hours available
3settings: detention, in person, the referred online cohort
What is different
The same program, and the conversation a gun makes necessary.
A young man with a gun charge needs everything in the core program: identity, forgiveness, choices, anger, integrity, career, family. He also needs to talk about the thing in his waistband, honestly, with somebody who will not flinch and will not preach. That is what the eleven lessons are for.
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A week with a JCVI lesson added. Every other week is the core program as it is.
The eleven lessons
Week by week.
Riding Along
Being in the car. The group decision nobody made, why being there can be the same charge, and how to get out of the car, the plan and the group chat.
What a Bullet Does
The whole cost, counted honestly: the person shot, the people who love him, the shooter, his mother, his little brother, the block. Injury as well as death.
How a Beef Starts and How It Ends
Retaliation as a loop with no end condition. Who the code actually serves, and exits that keep your name.
The Ten Seconds Before
What the body does in the seconds before something that cannot be undone, and the five thinking traps that put a gun in a hand, and the Slow-Down he can repeat under pressure.
Carrying Because You Are Scared
Fear dressed as toughness. What safety actually looks like, and the start of his Safety Plan, with real people and real places.
The People on the Other Side
Victims as people with names. What repair can and cannot be, and restorative steps that are safe and real.
What You Post
Posts, videos, drill and lyrics as evidence and as triggers. The audience he is performing for, and a 24-hour rule.
A Gun Case on Your Record
What a gun charge changes: adult court, Florida's 10-20-Life, probation, school, housing and work. And the Life Map for the future he is protecting.
Credible Messengers
Men who carried and came back. What makes someone worth listening to, how to let one in, and how to become one.
Interrupting It
Becoming the person who stops the next one. His finished Safety Plan and Life Map, and his commitments, read aloud at a closing circle.
The JCVI toolkit
Seven tools he carries instead.
Drawn from cognitive behavioral and community violence intervention practice with young people involved in gun violence. Each tool is introduced in one lesson and used again in the weeks after, so by week 23 they are habits, not handouts.
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Name It, Number It
The check-in. Name the feeling under the feeling and give it a number from 1 to 10. Above a 7, no decisions.
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Gun Thoughts
Five thinking traps that put a gun in a hand, from "It's about me" to "If I let it go, I'm nothing", and the test: is it true, is it useful, what would a camera see.
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The Slow-Down
Stop. Breathe out longer than in. Run the camera. Call one name. Ten seconds he can repeat under pressure.
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The Two Questions
Is anybody looking for me? Am I looking for anybody? Asked in private. If either answer is yes, our team helps.
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The Safety Plan
People he can call at 2am, places he is safe, what he does when a beef heats up, and what he does if he is ever hurt.
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The Life Map
Faith, family, school, work, health and peace. One goal in each, one step this month, one person checking on it.
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The Messenger and the Circle
A credible messenger he chooses, and his commitments read aloud in front of the people who matter to him.
How it runs
Detention first, then home.
For a young man under 18, JCVI starts inside the juvenile detention center, with an entry sequence built for short stays: the check-in, the Two Questions, the Slow-Down and a first Safety Plan. When he goes home he continues where he left off, without starting over. Young adults start in the community, in person in Miami or in the online cohort for referred young people.
Inside the facility
Weekly sessions in the Miami-Dade and Broward juvenile detention centers.
In person
The weekly room in Miami, with workforce development from partner organizations on site.
Online cohort
The JCVI cohort, every other Friday, 3 to 4pm Eastern, for everyone referred to JCVI, 15 to 25. Referred young people only. On time, camera on.
Mentors
Credible messengers, vetted through the juvenile justice agency's own process before they work with young people.
The research behind it
Built from what the evidence supports, and honest about its limits.
JCVI is evidence-informed. Every component comes from an approach with research support, and the program itself has not yet been independently evaluated. The full framework sets out the population, the Florida law the lessons teach, the design, the research behind each component, the safeguards, and the evaluation plan, with every figure checked against its source.
21%
Lower readmission over 18 months for youth who received twice-daily cognitive behavioral programming inside the Cook County juvenile detention center, in a randomized study. About 4 points across everyone assigned.
Heller et al., Quarterly Journal of Economics, 201726%
Mean reduction in reoffending for cognitive behavioral programs across 548 juvenile study samples. Discipline-based programs increased it by 8%.
Lipsey, Victims & Offenders, 20091.8%
Felony reconviction at 12 months for 16 to 24 year olds in credible-messenger group mentoring built on cognitive behavioral principles, against 5.9% for a matched comparison group.
Lynch et al., Urban Institute, 20182x
Exposure to firearm violence approximately doubles the probability that an adolescent commits serious violence over the next two years.
Bingenheimer, Brennan and Earls, Science, 2005Findings above describe other programs, not JCVI. The framework explains each one, including its design and limits. More on how the Institute uses research: Evidence.
For officers and the court
Everything the core program reports, by name.
- Choose JCVI: Gun Offenders Program on the referral form. It asks for the program, never the charge.
- Contact with the family within two business days, and placement confirmed in writing.
- Monday updates, monthly progress reports where the parent agrees to share, and a notice after 14 days without activity.
- A court packet with the hours ledger when the hours requirement is met. The packet names JCVI.
- His certificate of completion names the Youth Intervention Program, because he will show it to schools and employers for years, and it should not announce his charge.
- Written work is read by his facilitator and is never sent to a referrer or included in a report. Every page tells him plainly to never write about his own case, and that a disclosure that someone is about to be hurt, or that a child is being abused, is acted on by trained staff.
- The program is Christ-centered and says so before enrollment. Belief is never required or reported, and Scripture questions are optional.
Refer a young man to JCVI.
Free to the family and to your agency. About two minutes.