MELISSA BLOCK, host:
Big city crime isn't what it used to be. In New York, Los Angeles and cities in between, murders and other violent crimes are at a 50-year low. Over the coming weeks, we'll examine some reasons why and we begin in L.A., where there's a unique partnership between police and ex-gang members.
As NPR's Mandalit del Barco reports, it's making the streets safer.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO: Back in 1990, you probably wouldn't dare to stand in this alley on 77th Street in South Central like I am right now. Down the street, there is a police station. But even so, there used to be drive-by shootings. And people around here tell me that they used to hide their children in the bathtubs at night sometimes to avoid the stray bullets hitting them.
Ms. LORNA HAWKINS: It was very scary. Bullets just fly through these houses and these windows like nothing because these people don't know how to shoot. But, you know, little coward, baby-shooter killers.
DEL BARCO: Lorna Hawkins lost two sons to gang violence in 1988 and 1992.
Ms. HAWKINS: When the sun was going down, everybody better be somewhere in the dark, hiding. That's what it was like. It was hell.
DEL BARCO: And today?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. HAWKINS: They say the streets haven't been this safe for 50 years.
DEL BARCO: For decades, safe isn't a word that would have described much of L.A. Back in the '80s, at the height of the crack epidemic, there were nearly a thousand murders a year. Last year, there were 314. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says violent crime is down by nearly 11 percent from a year ago.
Mr. ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA (Mayor, Los Angeles): I used to shine shoes on 7th and Broadway, and I can tell you, there was a time when L.A. was this safe, but that time was in the 1950s.
(Soundbite of music)
DEL BARCO: Today on 7th and Broadway, shoeshine boys are gone, replaced by sidewalk merchants like Jesus Sevala.
Mr. JESUS SEVALA: (Foreign language spoken)
DEL BARCO: Sevala says the neighborhood is safer because many of the old troublemakers are locked up. Gang violence is still a problem here. But L.A.'s new police chief, Charlie Beck, says former gang members turned interventionists are helping put a dent in crime.
Mr. CHARLIE BECK (Chief, Los Angeles Police Department): Whenever a gang shooting occurs, we notify intervention, they do a couple things. They, first of all, dispel rumors. Rumors cause the next homicide, rumors about who did what to who instigate further violence. So they calm rumors. They also create peace. They broker peace between feuding factions. They also mentor and try to remove gang members from the life of violence.
(Soundbite of laughter)
(Soundbite of child talking)
DEL BARCO: Back on 77th Street, Jutaun Butler and her cousin Shonkia Dunbar are pushing her baby goddaughter in a stroller.
Ms. JUTAUN BUTLER: It seems so calm now.
Ms. SHONKIA DUNBAR: It is.
Ms. BUTLER: You don't hear that much about shootings and stuff as much now.
DEL BARCO: They say they've noticed a difference in the gang members in their neighborhood.
Ms. BUTLER: As far as trying to walk the streets, bothering people, I don't see that anymore.
Ms. DUNBAR: I guess, I see more polices out than I see gangbangers now, patrolling. So don't nobody want to go to jail no more. Everybody tired of being in jail.
Ms. BUTLER: They're losing friends. And then some of them just grew out of it.
Ms. HAWKINS: These guys started growing up and having their own babies. You see?
DEL BARCO: Lorna Hawkins became a community activist after her first son was murdered.
Ms. HAWKINS: A lot of gang members' kids are now - they are grown, and they're losing their sons, right? Nowadays, they're in their 40s, 50s, 60s, they're like, oh, I got grandkids. I cannot let this continue. So groups are coming together. They're coming together.
DEL BARCO: Gang interventionists, community groups and L.A. police all cooperating to drive down crime. Hawkins says this is a winning combination.
Mandalit del Barco, NPR News.