Boxing and breathing exercises are the way forward to prevent gang violence. International expert emphasizes programs in Denmark as the best he has seen to take people out of the gang environment.
Thomas Hoffmann (journalist/videnskab.dk)
18.8 2017
It may sound strange, but it's true: If you want to prevent gang violence, like what is happening in Nørrebro and the surrounding area in Copenhagen at the moment, then one of the most effective ways is for gang members to use their powers in a boxing ring or to focus on their breath.
This is what Professor Ross Deuchar, one of the world's leading researchers in the field, says.
Exercises open up gang members to new feelings
Deuchar is investigating crime prevention in, among others, the United States, Scotland and, yes, Nørrebro. He believes that we Danes hold the key to resolving the worst gang conflicts. They have a program called Breathe Smart.
For example, learning gang members to focus on their breath and thus get in touch with brand new feelings.
"It really helps them, because it enables them to start taking control of feelings like anger and experiencing feelings like calm and empathy. It may open the eyes to a new form of masculinity that is not based on physical violence and territoriality, but on feelings for the family, forming relationships with people and helping other people.
- Breathe Smart is a truly outstanding program, one of the best I've seen, says Deuchar, Professor of Criminology at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS).
Deuchar has written a chapter for a new book about the work of Breathe Smart and a similar program, Prison Smart, which is also very effective.
Boxing can be a good option
The professor adds that it can be difficult to reach out to all the hard gang members through yoga and meditation – gang members who in many cases have killed people, use strong drugs like cocaine and can perceive the slightest remark as a powerful provocation.
In other programs, therefore, more physical activities like boxing are used, which may be more in line with the perception of a proper man often prevalent in the gang environment. Then the aim is to reach out to the gang member in the boxing ring itself.
More police and control zones make matters worse
Some believe society should meet hard criminals with stricter penalties and other tough practices.
But science shows that the new methods work.
- All of these programs are good. If we want other results, we must do things differently with these guys. Recent research in Scotland shows that the use of, for example, control zones where people can be stopped and searched increases the negative perception of society and makes them less likely to help the police if they see a crime.
"If we only send more police to young people, it will only alienate them from society and increase marginalization. You need to supplement police – which may be a necessary short-term solution to a problem – with prevention. Otherwise, the problems come back again, says Deuchar.
Close cooperation cut crime by 46 percent
The professor mentions another method that has significantly reduced gang crime in Scotland: The police cooperate closely with people in the local area – social workers, schools, hospitals and families – to set up seminars and start conversations with members of the gang milieu.
It can provide useful insights to both sides, giving gang members something to better spend time with than driving around the streets.
It may sound a bit soft and fluffy, but Scotland's results speak for itself: in the years when the program was in use in Glasgow, gang violence fell by almost 50 percent, Deuchar states.
Many gang members are traumatized from home
In Denmark, Breathe Smart and Prison Smart is headed by Jakob Lund, who has contributed to some of Ross Deuchar's research.
Jakob Lund himself started Breathe Smart 17 years ago. He tells that over 100 people associated with the gang environment have gone through the program and that many of them are traumatized in one way or another.
Many have grown up with violence, in many cases the parents have hit them. Some have returned from a war, while others have grown up among war veterans who have not managed to make the family stay together.
"The most interesting thing is that when you are traumatized, you often shut down for feelings like empathy. Many try to avoid feeling anything because it hurts.
– There is a lot of aggression dormant in such people and they are used to working at a high level of stress, and many people use cocaine when to have fun and hash to come down again. But basically it is an insecurity. And by working with the body and breath you can reach that part and learn how to control those impulses," explains Lund.
Gang members learn to relax
Breathe Smart instructors speak with gang members in prison or on a course, in stressed areas in Copenhagen or in the quiet environment country cottage.
Sometimes the gang member sits on a chair, sometimes he is lying down – for normally, it's a man. An important part of a course that initially lasts for five days is to carry out stretching exercises and learn to breathe slowly into your stomach and slowly breathe out.
"You must keep in mind that these people always feel they are in war. It is "fight or flight". It's just like war veterans who have come home and can not help scanning the room for potential enemies or weak individuals they can take advantage of. They are always struggling," says Jakob Lund.
Working with the body and breath is to give gang members and others an opportunity to become conscious of their body. Only then can you make peace and work with problems in your head, it is said.
"We must get them out of the state of emergency they are in and teach them to understand themselves. Through the breath you can actually regulate the nervous system, and often people are really surprised to be in a calm state, because they have never tried it before.
– From there, you can actually begin to open up and feel empathy for other people. Then they can begin to see another human being as a human being and not just as an object. And then it becomes more difficult to shoot others or trade drugs or do what they do, explains Lund, contributing a chapter to the same new book as Ross Deuchar.
Former gang members are the best
The programs get extra good effect when former gang members use their experiences from Breathe Smart to show current gang members the way out of the environment, Deuchar points out.
"I think former gang members are some of the best mentors you can get. They have been on the streets and been involved in drugs and everything else. There are guys that gang members listen to and respect. Such role models may be necessary, because this type of men will often reject yoga and meditation as feminine activities," says the professor.
Community and rescue network
Deuchar's Danish colleague Line Lerche Mørck carries out research about how to move on from a gang.
She points out that the strength of Breathe Smart is that former gang members stay to help and thus create a community.This makes it something completely different from the so-called Exit program offered by the state to former members of motorcycle gangs.
– If one really wants to change masculinity and distance oneself from one's former life – and this is something a gang member should do to find other values – the process can be very difficult. You can fall in and out of your past life, and there are many who do. But you can always come back to Breathe Smart.
"It is a big contrast to the Exit program, which is a lot more hardcore keeping on track on the right path," says Line Lerche Mørck, professor of prevention of radicalisation and gang membership at DPU, Aarhus University.
Breathe Smart has greater legitimacy
According to Mørck, the members of the Exit program often feel that they are being treated as clients who must always be controlled.
It is an individual course where you should keep away from other people related to gangs, attend appointments with the psychologist, remove the tattoos and give up drugs. They must report to a strict authority.
Some gang members, according to Line Lerche Mørck, end up loosing 20 kilograms, becoming vegetarians and staying away from alcohol and drugs after they have been through the Breathe Smart program.
A former member of a motorcycle gang, a person whom Mørck has followed closely in her research, found that his supervisor was the same police officer who had previously investigated him.
At other times, they find that supervisors and contacts are exchanged. There are therefore several good reasons for distrust, Mørck points out.
In Breathe Smart, people instead find a community and get guidance from former gang members and former criminals.
"Seeing how they've done it creates hope, especially in the beginning. To see that a guy with tattoos across the body, who knows the environment, says that the program is damn good – it gives legitimacy, says Mørck, who has interviewed former gang members.
Different programs for different people
According to Jakob Lund, it is important that the various programs complement each other, so that as many as possible can be reached.
- There is not one method for all people. People are different and we must be much more open to new alternative opportunities to help. There is a really important point in this, says Lund.
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© Videnskab.dk. – translated by CKB for AOL Norway