Musa Mahdi could have chosen any success story to share. The one he wanted to talk about on a recent afternoon happened on the day he picked up a young man from a D.C. school.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It had taken convincing to get the teenager to start attending school again, and even after he agreed, he often skipped classes and roamed the halls. But when Mahdi showed up that day, the teenager told him he was tired.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cToday was the first day I attended every class,\u201d Mahdi recalled him saying.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Another adult might not have seen that accomplishment as worth noting. But Mahdi drove the teenager that day to get his favorite dish, Wings Inferno, at Busboys and Poets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI was so happy,\u201d Mahdi recalled. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t know how much joy he gave me. To me, that felt like the ultimate success.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
For the past five years, young people who have ended up in D.C.\u2019s criminal justice system have encountered Mahdi as a \u201ccredible messenger,\u201d a title that tells them he understands the life they\u2019re living because he has lived it. The D.C. native grew up on the same streets they\u2019ve walked. He has been locked up in the same type of cells they\u2019ve occupied. He understands the pressures they\u2019re up against because he\u2019s been up against them, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Children keep seeing grown-ups killed in the nation\u2019s capital. They\u2019re victims, too.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mahdi served time in D.C. jail and six federal prisons before getting released in 2017. He was in custody when he turned 18. On that day, guards pulled him from the juvenile block and tossed him into the adult section.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThat was your birthday gift,\u201d he said. \u201cThey take you upstairs and throw you in with the wolves. That statement \u2014 \u2018It can make you or break you\u2019 \u2014 is true. It broke a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In some District neighborhoods, the term \u201ccredible messengers\u201d doesn\u2019t need to be explained. But in the last year, the mentorship movement has expanded from D.C. to cities across the nation where the concept is new, and people in those places might find themselves wondering what it is all about.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mahdi, who works for D.C.\u2019s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, said they should know this: \u201cWe celebrate every success.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n By \u201cevery\u201d he means the big and the small, the life-altering and the habit-changing, the ones that come from decisions made in heated moments and the ones that take repeated, purposeful action.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One young man he mentors is now attending college, and Mahdi still worries about him. \u201cThe work is never done,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is never done.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As U.S. cities grapple with how to address juvenile crime, there has been much debate about youth curfews, such as the one that Prince George\u2019s County started to enforce<\/a> this month. But curfews don\u2019t change lives. They empower the police to force a young person off the street for a few hours. They don\u2019t empower young people in ways that make them not want to be on the street the next night or the night after that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Forget curfews. We should be spending more of our collective energy examining long-term solutions to addressing juvenile crime and dedicating more resources to the ones that show the most promise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Any organization that works with vulnerable youth warrants close and consistent scrutiny. The stakes are too high to simply trust that good intentions equal good outcomes. But the concept of credible messengers is rooted in redemption, and it\u2019s easy to see how if recruitment, training and oversight is done right, it could keep some juvenile offenders from becoming adult offenders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Clinton Lacey, the former director of D.C.\u2019s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, describes credible messenger initiatives as offering communities a way to employ returning citizens and reduce recidivism among young people. Systems and services often lack cultural understanding of the communities they serve, he said. Credible messengers bring that understanding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to know communities,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to know families. You have to care about them. I always say you have to love them. You have to have this core belief that they are not the sum total of their problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lacey developed the District\u2019s credible messenger initiative after establishing a program in New York, where he worked as deputy commissioner of the city\u2019s probation department. The goal in the District was to offer young people who were being released from the detention facility New Beginnings Youth Development Center someone who could help them transition back into the community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lacey said DYRS was hosting a summit in 2018 that was attended by people from across the country when he started thinking about expanding the initiative to other cities. In March 2021, he resigned from DYRS and founded the not-for-profit organization Credible Messenger Mentoring Movement (CM3)<\/a>. In the last year, the organization has helped launch initiatives in more than a half dozen places, including cities in Texas, Mississippi and New Jersey.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That more cities are seeking to train and deploy credible messengers shows a growing desire by government officials to do more for young people than lock them up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n D.C. has seen one concerning case after another in recent years involving juveniles. It is also a place with credible messengers. I asked Lacey whether that shows a lack of the program\u2019s effectiveness. He said it shows a need to expand the credible messenger program to youth who aren\u2019t yet in DYRS custody.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n