In the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago's south side, nearly 100 people were shot last year, and many of the young people living there will tell you the violence weighs on them.
"It affect me as a young Black man, because walking down the street with your friends, you got to worry about, 'Oh, watch that car. Oh, watch that alley,'" says 17-year-old A.M.
"You get so used to it. It ain't even no point. Like, even when they be shooting, I still sit there in the bed and watch TV," says D.B., also 17.
NPR is referring to these students by their initials to protect them from stigma they might face for speaking about their experiences.
These reactions – feeling numb or hyper alert – are signs of chronic stress, and adults at their high school took note. Last year, they were tapped for a youth program that showed promising results in reducing violence. It relied, in part, on a concept borrowed from poker.
'On tilt with guns'
Choose to Change is a six-month program that focuses on young people who are already struggling: Many have been arrested or have had gaps in school enrollment. Some may be affiliated with gangs or are on juvenile probation.
Students in the program are paired with mentors and attend weekly group therapy, where clinicians use cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, to help change their thought patterns – especially around traumatic experiences.
"What we try to do is to have them look at those instances in a different way. Like, consider yourself a survivor," program director Chris Sutton says. "We're just trying to get them to key in on some of those wins that you don't give yourself credit for."
Last fall, the University of Chicago Crime Lab released research on the program's effects over time. Teenagers who participated were nearly 40% less likely to be arrested for a violent crime, compared with students who weren't in the program. Those results held for up to two years afterwards.
It's part of a growing body of evidence that this type of therapy can be a powerful tool to reduce violence. On the east coast, another program using CBT called Roca, has seen similar results: In Massachusetts, nearly every young person that stayed with the program for more than two years – most of whom had a criminal history – had no new arrests.
Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, says when it comes to what causes violent crime, people tend to give one of two answers: that some people are amoral and unafraid of consequences, or that they're economically desperate.
"What's interesting about both of those conventional wisdoms is that they implicitly agree at some level on what's causing crime and violence, which is people engaging in some sort of weighing of pros and cons before they act," he says.
But Ludwig says many violent crimes are impulsive, not rational. There's even a phrase poker players use for letting your emotions get the best of you: Being on tilt.
"I think of gun violence as basically being a problem of people being on tilt with guns," Ludwig says. "Once you conceive of the problem that way, it changes your thinking about what you can do about it."
He cautions that these interventions are not a substitute for gun control – but a way to make progress without it.
"If we have 400 million guns in America and they're not going anywhere anytime soon," he says, "then how do we get people to be less willing to use guns against one another?"
'I finally had somebody to talk to'
Young people have a harder time managing emotions than adults, and trauma can make that even harder. Children exposed to violence are more likely to become perpetrators of it later on.
"When kids are exposed to these things on a pretty persistent regular daily basis, that has an impact on them emotionally, behaviorally, how they view the world, how they respond to things in the moment," says Dan Flannery, who studies violence prevention at Case Western Reserve University. "When you get into a conflict or an argument, how do you resolve it? What are you exposed to in your own families around how things are handled?"
Cognitive behavioral therapy has the potential to essentially rewire the brain, making it easier to do things like walk away from a beef rather than retaliate. But researchers caution that doing this kind of work well is resource-intensive, and there's no one-size-fits-all approach.
"You can't put the same program in ten different schools that are very different and expect it's going to work the same way," Flannery says. "You need the adult, the mentor, the coach, the teacher that took an interest in you and provided an opportunity or protection at the right time, which is why this is so hard to just say, 'Hey, if we did these three things, everything would be better.'"
But in Chicago, Choose to Change is expanding since it first started 10 years ago. In 2018, the city and school district began funding the program so more students could participate. Today, officials at Chicago Public Schools estimate more than 4,000 students have participated.
Jadine Chou, who was until earlier this month the district's chief of safety and security, says when she took the job more than a decade ago, the dominant mindset was that the school's domain only extended to its walls.
"As long as students didn't bring situations into the building, whatever they did outside of the building was not someone's concern," she says. "But we know that's not helpful. That's not enough… we have to look at this whole picture."
The students in Englewood finished the program last September.
"I was doing bad. I'm not gonna lie. I was fighting and stuff a lot," A.W. says. "I finally had somebody to talk to about it. And yeah, that's what made it better."
"I had so much built up last year that I didn't get out, but I got it out," A.M. says. "Now I'm more in tune with the school."
While they were in the program, these students took part in a youth competition to design an anti-violence program. They won third place nationally.
"I got tired of seeing the community repeating, repeating the same cycle on and on and on," A.M. says. "I gotta do what I got to do to better myself."
He says he feels like he got a helping hand, but he gives himself credit for taking it.
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