57 and still in the streets
By Vivian Nereim
June 2010
PITTSBURGH, Pa.// One day like so many others in SCI Graterford, Pennsylvania’s largest maximum-security prison, Richard Garland perched at the end of a tier and looked down at 400 cells. With a glance, he could diagnose each man's condition: drinker, addict, hustler. He had been there too long.
"The one thing I realized about everybody was they forgot about the streets," Garland said. "They forgot about society."
"I refuse to forget where I come from."
He is 57 now, with long, graying dreadlocks: his face and temperament softened by age. He cannot define what pushed him to change. Old-timers got through. He was inspired by MOVE, a radical black liberation group. For nearly 20 years, though, Garland has been back on the streets, healing some of society’s most visible wounds.
In 2003, he became executive director of Allegheny County’s anti-violence initiative, One Vision One Life (OVOL), a federal grant-winning project with a $1.2 million budget. Assisted by more than 20 employees who hover on street corners and above hospital beds, he works daily to staunch the bloodletting that plagues poor neighborhoods.
Earlier this summer, when shots rang out in Overbrook and Lamar Williams, 24, slumped dead over the wheel of a Cadillac, Richard Garland was driving by on Route 51. He rushed to the scene. Immediately, his men searched for a story. Bad drug deal? Jealousy over a girl? Could they stop retaliation?
Garland believes that men like him, once the perpetrators of violence, have the power to stomp it out.
"Most of my guys were part of the problem. Now I'm convincing them to be part of the solution," he said. "Yes they was bad actors. They was either drug dealers, or they might have shot somebody."
"That's their street cred," he said. "That's what they come with."
The fourth of six children, Garland was born in Philadelphia in 1953. He and his twin brother were raised by his grandmother in a Frankford housing project, where he quickly learned to fight.
"My twin brother's never been involved in gangs and stuff like that," Garland said. "He had a nervous breakdown because, I mean, the cops thought he was me."
His twin is now an EMT in New Jersey. Garland is another story.
"I was into the gang stuff at an early age," he said.
At 14, he collected his first arrest. At 16, he was kicked out of Frankford High School for hitting a teacher. Eventually, charged with robberies, burglaries, aggravated assaults and more, he spent 23 ½ years behind bars.
Garland’s life revolves around one date.
“August 21, 1991,” he said, letting loose a chuckle: the day he left prison for the last time.
He landed in Pittsburgh with a job in construction. He left for work before dawn, arrived home after dusk and hung siding every hour in between. But he kept his eyes on the streets.
Armed with a prison GED, Garland graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1992, then worked for several social service groups, aiding youth in neglected neighborhoods. In 1996, he received a Masters in Social Work from Pitt.
After a record-breaking year of homicides, he worked with local leaders to create OVOL.
The organization depends on about 20 community coordinators who stay close to the ground, gathering intelligence, soothing conflicts and offering jobs and aid to those in need.
The coordinators almost always have criminal records. Garland has weeded through more than 150 men to find his current crop; many lapsed back into crime. He insists that a rough history gives them the “juice” to confront troubled young men.
In 2008, after a 12-year-old died in a barrage of bullets, Garland helped negotiate a truce among rival gang members, who met with District Attorney Stephen Zappala, willing to listen.
"They were all groups from the North Side," Garland said. "They were feuding with each other."
But while similar initiatives in Chicago and Boston celebrated measurable decreases in violence, OVOL has struggled with statistics.
A Rand Corporation study that analyzed data through 2007 found no link between the organization’s work and homicide numbers. Researchers determined that other violent crimes had increased in some areas.
Garland still has the support of community leaders. He said OVOL has refined operations since the study was completed, boosting documentation, raising pay for coordinators and focusing more on gangs.
“My biggest challenge is going to be with the public,” Garland said. “We’re spending all this money for these guys, and we still got stuff happening.”
He can offer a job to a man. He can plead. But he cannot make him show up on time or pass a drug test, he said.
It took him decades to turn his life. Change came in pieces.
This piece was commissioned by a local magazine, but was never published.
June 2010
PITTSBURGH, Pa.// One day like so many others in SCI Graterford, Pennsylvania’s largest maximum-security prison, Richard Garland perched at the end of a tier and looked down at 400 cells. With a glance, he could diagnose each man's condition: drinker, addict, hustler. He had been there too long.
"The one thing I realized about everybody was they forgot about the streets," Garland said. "They forgot about society."
"I refuse to forget where I come from."
He is 57 now, with long, graying dreadlocks: his face and temperament softened by age. He cannot define what pushed him to change. Old-timers got through. He was inspired by MOVE, a radical black liberation group. For nearly 20 years, though, Garland has been back on the streets, healing some of society’s most visible wounds.
In 2003, he became executive director of Allegheny County’s anti-violence initiative, One Vision One Life (OVOL), a federal grant-winning project with a $1.2 million budget. Assisted by more than 20 employees who hover on street corners and above hospital beds, he works daily to staunch the bloodletting that plagues poor neighborhoods.
Earlier this summer, when shots rang out in Overbrook and Lamar Williams, 24, slumped dead over the wheel of a Cadillac, Richard Garland was driving by on Route 51. He rushed to the scene. Immediately, his men searched for a story. Bad drug deal? Jealousy over a girl? Could they stop retaliation?
Garland believes that men like him, once the perpetrators of violence, have the power to stomp it out.
"Most of my guys were part of the problem. Now I'm convincing them to be part of the solution," he said. "Yes they was bad actors. They was either drug dealers, or they might have shot somebody."
"That's their street cred," he said. "That's what they come with."
The fourth of six children, Garland was born in Philadelphia in 1953. He and his twin brother were raised by his grandmother in a Frankford housing project, where he quickly learned to fight.
"My twin brother's never been involved in gangs and stuff like that," Garland said. "He had a nervous breakdown because, I mean, the cops thought he was me."
His twin is now an EMT in New Jersey. Garland is another story.
"I was into the gang stuff at an early age," he said.
At 14, he collected his first arrest. At 16, he was kicked out of Frankford High School for hitting a teacher. Eventually, charged with robberies, burglaries, aggravated assaults and more, he spent 23 ½ years behind bars.
Garland’s life revolves around one date.
“August 21, 1991,” he said, letting loose a chuckle: the day he left prison for the last time.
He landed in Pittsburgh with a job in construction. He left for work before dawn, arrived home after dusk and hung siding every hour in between. But he kept his eyes on the streets.
Armed with a prison GED, Garland graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1992, then worked for several social service groups, aiding youth in neglected neighborhoods. In 1996, he received a Masters in Social Work from Pitt.
After a record-breaking year of homicides, he worked with local leaders to create OVOL.
The organization depends on about 20 community coordinators who stay close to the ground, gathering intelligence, soothing conflicts and offering jobs and aid to those in need.
The coordinators almost always have criminal records. Garland has weeded through more than 150 men to find his current crop; many lapsed back into crime. He insists that a rough history gives them the “juice” to confront troubled young men.
In 2008, after a 12-year-old died in a barrage of bullets, Garland helped negotiate a truce among rival gang members, who met with District Attorney Stephen Zappala, willing to listen.
"They were all groups from the North Side," Garland said. "They were feuding with each other."
But while similar initiatives in Chicago and Boston celebrated measurable decreases in violence, OVOL has struggled with statistics.
A Rand Corporation study that analyzed data through 2007 found no link between the organization’s work and homicide numbers. Researchers determined that other violent crimes had increased in some areas.
Garland still has the support of community leaders. He said OVOL has refined operations since the study was completed, boosting documentation, raising pay for coordinators and focusing more on gangs.
“My biggest challenge is going to be with the public,” Garland said. “We’re spending all this money for these guys, and we still got stuff happening.”
He can offer a job to a man. He can plead. But he cannot make him show up on time or pass a drug test, he said.
It took him decades to turn his life. Change came in pieces.
This piece was commissioned by a local magazine, but was never published.