Growing Up Baltimore – V-I-P
Every Thursday afternoon, nearly a dozen people crowd into a small third floor conference room down the hall from Violence Intervention Program in the University of Maryland Medical Center’s.
“Arthur” – his last name was withheld – sits at the head of the table, wearing a baseball cap over long dreadlocks, peering out behind large designer sunglasses. Last year, he was rushed to Shock-Trauma with gunshot wounds. He enrolled in the Violence Intervention Program, created to help like him get out of a lifestyle that is likely to lead them back to a hospital emergency room, a courthouse, prison, a prison cell or a morgue.
VIP counselor Howard McCray, a former program client, is trying to convince “Arthur,” a former drug dealer, that there’s no disrespect in working a regular job.
“…that’s where your actual manhood comes from.”
[Arthur]: “I’m 30-years-old and I’ve never had a job on the street. I think one time, but it lasted like one week, because I was on trial. But it just doesn’t add up to me, working all those hours. And taking that heat…”
[Howard]: “…And taking orders.”
[Arthur]: “And taking orders. I don’t have to do nothing. I can just separate myself from the drugs and don’t touch the drugs and still make money. So, I don’t see the point…You’re a real loser, if you’re 30 years old, and you’re working at McDonald’s…”
[Howard]: “That don’t make you no loser…”
[Arthur]: “It makes you a loser. You lost. You’re a loser. You lost, you lost. You’re a loser.”
Over the last 11 years, Shock-Trauma’s Violence Intervention Program has helped more than 500 clients find jobs, new places to live, and assistance with health problems, like substance abuse, with intensive group and individual counseling. In a city ranked by the FBI as the nation’s second most-violent, it is common for both the perpetrators and victims of violent crime to make repeat trips to hospitals and prisons. But that’s not the case for the large majority of those who have enrolled in VIP. The program’s low recividism rate, says Dawn Eslinger, an epidemiologist with the V-I-P, has earned widespread attention and praise for the program.
“We’ve gotten national recognition. We have many states, many other groups from other states, have come to see what this program is, and to learn exactly what we do, because they’ve taken this model back to their state.”
Most of those enrolled in V-I-P fit the general profile of those likely to become the victims of violent crime. Nearly all are African-American men, the majority are under 30-years-old of age and getting younger. Most are single and without a high school diploma.
Sheryl Goldstein, the director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice, said the V-I-P has helped reduce the city’s violent crime rate.
“It’s cost effective in terms of the dollars it saves the health system. There’s an 83-percent reduction in repeat hospitalizations due to violent injuries. And there’s a 75-percent reduction in violent crimes being committed by the people who involved in their program. And, so, from both a public safety and a public health perspective, it makes good dollars and cents, no question.”
According to findings published three years ago in The Journal of Trauma, Injury and Critical Care, the V-I-P reduced prison time and the cost of incarceration in a case study group of 56 men by more than 90-percent. Hospitalizations decreased 97-percent. And the cost of hospitalization, which had averaged 46-thousand dollars for each of the 56 individuals in the case group, declined to 138-thousand dollars combined.
These differences were even greater when compared to a case study group of 44 men who had not enrolled in the program. Subsequent data shows those trends continuing.
That’s quite a savings for a program has an annual operating budget of 440-thousand dollars – a sum roughly equivalent to about 10 surgeries performed in Shock-Trauma. But that’s little consolation, because the program, which has been funded by grants, is facing a shortfall of more than 200-thousand dollars. And if that money can’t be raised by the spring, the V-I-P may close.
Beth Miller Ryan is the associate director of the University of Maryland Medical Center Foundation, which is actively seeking money to keep the V-I-P operating.
“Several of the funding sources that we’ve relied on traditionally, have been cut. I mean, it’s no news that places like the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention. These funds no longer flow in our direction. So, we are looking for new sources to keep the program operational.”
“We have a formula that works because it saves lives…”
That’s Dr. Cooper, who personally counsels many who enroll in the program and participates in the group sessions. He says he’s optimistic that V-I-P will secure the funding it needs.
“It is a difficult period of time. We’ve been through difficulties before and we’re going to keep working at it. And we’re not going to give up.”
Giving up is what some V-I-P staff members fear their clients may do, if the aftercare part of the program – which includes family members – comes to an end.
The uncertainty over the program’s future, says a client and volunteer case worker Shawn Manning, is sending out the wrong message to those who rely on the VIP.
“If it go out of business, I personally think that it was something that the government didn’t want to last anyway. They didn’t really have the program in place for the clients anyway, if they let it go out of business. If it wasn’t for this program, I’d probably be back there, out on the streets, doing the things that I did and probably end up shot or back in jail, or in a worser situation.”
Dr. Thomas Scalea, physician in chief of the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center says there’s a simple answer to the question of what would happen if the Violence Intervention Program does not survive.
“More people would be dead. I mean, you just can’t argue with the data here. If you prevent violent injury, you save lives. Just like if you prevent car crashes, you save lives. Preventing injuries saves lives.”
Increasingly, the lives the V-I-P is saving are those who are most vulnerable to violence — local teenagers and young adults.
I’m Sunni Khalid, reporting in West Baltimore, for 88.1, WYPR.
Our series, “Growing Up Baltimore,” is made possible, in part, Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence. The findings and conclusions presented in our series do not necessarily reflect the opinions of these organizations.
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