Aiming to help curb rising rates of youth gun violence, Will Wallace has been utilizing peer support programming for conflict resolution and trauma healing. Wallace is the director of community peace building at Nonviolent Peaceforce and the youth programs director at EMERGE. He’s been working with youth in Minneapolis for over 25 years.
Wallace has worked with young men ages 14-21, and said a primary risk factor for them experiencing gun violence is gang and “street life” involvement. Wallace said that can sometimes start with extended family members being victims of or engaging in gun violence, which has a trickle-down effect on younger family members.
“It’s a pandemic right now. Gun violence is just violence in general,” Wallace told State of Reform.
Wallace has used a cohort teaching model that unites youths from the same neighborhood in order to solve differences and conflicts.
Gun laws in Minnesota are relatively strict, according to Wallace, who noted that people who have not been convicted of a felony can begin to purchase firearms at the age of 21. He noted that the U.S. attorney general has been cracking down on firearms that have an automatic sear switch, which is a small device that can be attached to a handgun, essentially turning it into an automatic weapon.
“They are really enforcing that law now,” Wallace said. “If we don’t have strict gun laws, it’s not the gun—it’s the people who use them. [But] you’ve got to have strict gun laws when you see an innocent, six-year-old baby being killed.”
At EMERGE, Wallace developed a one-year youth program that features weekly group meetings and check-ins, and has had a major impact on reducing violence. The program assists youth with landing internships and job opportunities. Challenges arise when youth from low-income homes observe drug dealers turning profits from illegal activities.
“I think the greatest challenge is stopping the cycle when it comes to family [influence]. You have family members that support their young nephew that’s 15 to 16 (telling them), ‘This will protect you in the community.’ But that’s destroying our community. It’s a huge challenge to tell (an) uncle he shouldn’t be doing that.”
— Wallace
After a string of homicides occurred in Minneapolis in 2008, Wallace said EMERGE assessed about 100 youth, and asked what it would take for them to put their guns down. They responded that they needed a job and a positive role model, according to Wallace.
“They needed families (the mom and dad) to be involved,” Wallace said.
Wallace thinks it’s crucial for those working with youth to have similar backgrounds as the youth they’re trying to help. Wallace can relate to the kids he works with, and doesn’t view himself as solely a program manager. Sometimes he acts as a father figure. One youth he works with got kicked out of his home at 2 a.m., and Wallace knew he was capable of shooting a gun, so he picked him up an hour later.
Over the past three decades, EMERGE has worked with over 400 youth. During the program’s weekly check-ins, if youth don’t respond to the program’s outreach attempts, staff assumes they’re either in trouble, their phone is turned off, or they’re imprisoned—in which case Wallace will check criminal records systems in search of them.
“We’ve seen tremendous outcomes of young people not going to jail,” Wallace said. “People say [the program] can’t work. Oh, it can work.”
Nonviolent Peaceforce is currently in the early stages of creating a youth center, with plans for a cohort model and integrating principles of nonviolence, while growing additional leaders to provide community safety.
Creating positive community alternatives
Wallace said the greatest deterrent to gun violence is exposure to beauty, and Americans need to focus on building beautiful communities. The biggest supporters of gun violence, he said, are family members.
Dealing drugs is one way low-income youth provide for their families, and alternative paths, like EMERGE’s internship program, are needed to deter them from illegal activities. Wallace said youth in the program who previously dealt drugs no longer have to worry about getting shot, robbed, imprisoned, or murdered. They have found other ways to make money.
EMERGE works with community stakeholders to connect youth with paid internships that last six months or a year. Following the internship period, Wallace said employers conduct assessments on how the young adult performed, and if they were a positive force throughout the internship, the employer will hire them.
Wallace cited a Martin Luther King Jr. quote to describe the program.
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend,” Wallace said.
Readers interested in learning more about gun violence are invited to attend the 2024 Minnesota State of Reform Health Policy Conference on Sept. 5 at the Hyatt Regency Bloomington. Wallace will be speaking on the “Gun Violence as a Public Health Crisis” panel at 9:30 a.m.
This is the most uplifting and hopeful article I’ve read this year!
I’m grateful Nonviolent Peaceforce carefully designed, started, and continues to support this program.
Will sounds like a compassionate, experienced, and committed leader.