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Community Corner

Council for Unity: Gang Busters, Community Builders

Riverhead's Council For Unity program noted as a 'model for the country' between school, police, and prison participation.

When Sean “Dino” Johnson was 14, growing up in Queens, a man walked up to him and asked him to go to the store for him a package of rubber bands.

The man, he said, was known around his neighborhood for being involved in unsavory activities but Johnson rationalized that rubber bands were not beer or cigarettes and the request was not illegal.

He got paid $100.

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“That created a value system in me,” said Johnson, who soon fell prey to gang recruitment tactics. “Gangs are a culture and with a culture, comes a value system.”

By the time he was 15, Johnson, whose parents were both professional social workers, was in jail for trying to kill another teen.

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“I grew up with babysitters and got my role models off the street,” he said.

Johnson came to tell his grim story at last week’s gang and violence awareness seminar, “Building a Safe Community,” sponsored by the East End Gang Awareness Committee and held at the Long Island Exhibition Center in downtown Riverhead

Gangs are a growing threat across the nation and in Suffolk County, targeting areas such as Riverhead, said Sgt. Damian Germain of the Suffolk County Police Department’s community response unit.

Today’s gang recruiters aren’t found on the playground but instead, , insinuating themselves into the lives and minds of impressionable young teens.

“Gangs are changing with the times,” Germain said. “Gang action is on the rise in Suffolk County,” he said.

The largest growing gang population is among females.

Today, Johnson works for positive change as a director for Council for Unity, an organization that aims to give youth searching for belonging and a sense of family new purpose so that they can escape the culture of gangs.

Council for Unity, founded by Robert DeSena over 30 years ago, is a not-for-profit organization that specializes in reducing violence in schools and communities by replacing a culture of despair with a culture of hope.  

“Council for Unity creates an environment that promotes and supports change,” Johnson said.

In Riverhead, parents, educators and members of law enforcement have come together to embrace Council for Unity. “Council for Unity has grown immensely in Riverhead since 2003,” said DeSena.

The program has been integrated into area schools - recently the - as well as the Riverhead Police Department, and a CFU adult and family partnership has been established in the community. 

“We are also in the jail, where miracles are occurring every day,” DeSena said.

At the Suffolk County Correctional Facility, former gang members are involved in the CFU program and are rebuilding shattered lives. Soon, the Suffolk County Correctional Facility will incorporate a youth tier to the CFU program for younger gang members, shining a light of hope.

Riverhead has been so successful at incorporating CFU principles to combat gang warfare that members of the Brooklyn district attorney’s office came out to the area two weeks ago to witness the model; the hope is to bring CFU’s winning strategy to Brooklyn.

“The Riverhead model is so significant because it's holistic,” said DeSena. “We're in the schools, the community, the police department and the prison – all are integrated. Riverhead is a model for the country.”

Johnson, at the seminar, explained that in order to effect change, it’s important to realize that kids who join gangs are seeking acceptance, and sometimes, the money and glory they believe comes with gang membership.

In order to guide gang members to a new life, CFU teaches new skills, a new value system.

“In order to target change, we have to begin to understand their way of communicating,” Johnson said “A lot of our youth are unable to communicate and unable to nurture and develop relationships,” he said. “We have to help them to develop communication skills.”

Added DeSena, “Council for Unity is so successful because it is not a program, but a culture. It meets the same needs in kids that gangs do but in a healthy way.”

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