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Matthew Oyer: I'm here today with Kirkland Vaughans and Martha Bragin, who have graciously agreed to sit down for an interview with me today. Hello, Kirkland and Martha. Thanks so much for joining me today for this interview. Is there anything you want to say right off the top, before we get into my questions?
Kirkland Vaughans: I think you should be clear that we're talking about our work that took place in Brooklyn. I knew Martha from East New York and Brownsville. That's where our work came together.
MO: Yes, so that's where I was hoping to start. I'd love for you guys to tell me a bit about how you met and the work that you did together in Brooklyn.
Martha Bragin: I can give some of the background if it is helpful. The Brooklyn PINS Diversion Project began in 1987, as part of a new law that created mandatory diversion away from court-related services to all persons in New York State aged 16 or under who were brought to family court as in “need of supervision” (PINS). The youngsters had been accused of offenses ranging from truancy to armed robbery, gang violence, and violent attack. Our job at the program was to meet every child and family on the day that they came to court, and to within six weeks assess the root causes of the problems that had brought them there and provide non-carceral community-based solutions that could address the issues that we found.
We quickly learned that they were affected by three levels of violence: (1) structural violence, baked into the conditions of their lives; (2) social violence that maintains those structures; and (3) interpersonal violence in family and neighborhood relationships, in which social conditions manifest as deeply personal. In addition, the historical violence, transmitted through generations of struggle, that Kirkland writes about so eloquently, played a significant role. While the youngsters who came to our attention were labeled as the source of violence, their histories made it clear that they were in fact its su