How Credible Messengers Save Lives

One of the most powerful tools in the fight against violence isn’t found in the courtroom—it’s in the community. Credible messengers are people with lived experience in gangs, incarceration, and the streets who now use their past to build trust and guide others toward a different future.

In this episode, we meet Julius Buie, who spent more than two decades in gang life before becoming a credible messenger in Pulaski County. Today, he mentors youth, advocates in courtrooms, and offers second chances to people on the edge of violence.

His story shows why credible messengers are essential partners in reducing shootings, saving lives, and creating safer communities.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Credible Messengers
• 1:22 Julius Bui's Gang Experience
• 4:12 The Power of Lived Experience
• 7:22 Building Trust and Second Chances
• 11:13 Creating Ripple Effects of Change
• 13:58 Hope and Transformation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Reducing violence in our communities isn't likely to happen if it comes only from the criminal justice system. One of the most powerful tools is people People who've lived through the very struggles they're now helping others to avoid. We call them credible messengers. They are men and women who may have once been in a gang, surfed time or walked the same streets as the young people most at risk today. That history gives them a voice that carries weight and helps build trust where the system often can't Welcome to A Shot at Hope a special series from Smart Justice.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Around the nation, gun violence is destroying families and weakening communities, and it's becoming a leading cause of death for young people. We know that in nearly every city, only a small number of people are driving most of the violence. An approach called group violence intervention, or GVI, identifies those individuals and engages with them directly, trying to offer them a way out before the violence occurs. It's not just about stopping the shootings. It's about building a community where everyone feels like they have a shot at hope. In Pulaski County, julius Bui helps deliver second chances. After spending over two decades in a gang lifestyle, he's quite familiar with the choices and the pressures that pull young people into violence. He remembers how it felt to see his friends die one by one and wondering if he'd be next.

Speaker 2: 1:39

I was just tired. It was not okay when I have to look at the store before I walk out of the store. It was not okay when I have to look at the store before I walk out of the store. So it just came to a point where, hey, enough is enough. I'm still here for a reason and I'm tired of wondering. Is tomorrow the last day?

Speaker 2: 2:03

He understands that, the reasons that young people would choose living a violent lifestyle or complex, when there's no programs, no education, no mental health, no trauma response? No, nothing like that to educate us on why we get mad, why do we retaliate, why do we do these things? It led us to become numb to it as it being normal. So if it's normal, I can do it. And you asked me why you do it and I will not be able to answer you because it's normal. I don't know nothing but that gun, that bag, that money, fast money. That's all I knew. It was the environment, it was the crowd I ran with, it was the streets. Uh, so at home was fine. I didn't want for nothing, never went hungry. We lived in a low income neighborhood, but dad retired on his job 50 years, mom seeing they like I mean you know. So I didn't lack for anything, right? So there was nothing at home that pushed me to the streets. It was just a choice I made, running with the wrong crowd.

Speaker 2: 3:06

It is very important to know the why. Right, why are these children acting out right? Why are they stealing? Why are they carrying guns? Right, it starts at the home, majority of the time, right, but some it's not. At home's the environment, right. So they they're hanging around people that comes from bad homes, right, and it's cool now and a lot of things that's going on in the streets with these children. The music is raising our children, right. So, at the end of the day, if you ask me, jesus, why were you ever in a gang? Why did you choose to sell drugs? I want to feel accepted. I want to be a part of something, right? So if I was a part of something and felt accepted and had a purpose and knew I knew how to do something, was showed how to do something, I probably wouldn't have did the things I've done.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Credible messengers are key to building trust, because their lived experience gives them authenticity that institutions can't provide. When they speak, young people listen Not out of fear or obligation, but because they feel understood.

Speaker 2: 4:17

Well, a credible messenger is someone with lived experience, right, that's able to come and meet a need and, most definitely, to be able to be transparent in spaces that's uncomfortable to a person, that don't have experience, don't comfort their lifestyle. Because, again, I stress this fact, how could you talk to a gangster if you've never been a gangster? How could you talk to a gangster if you've never been a gangster? How could you talk to an addict if you've never been an addict? Right, it may work for a time, but there's no transparency, there's no openness there. There is no, I feel you. There is no. Well, let me tell you what worked for me. Or let me tell you my story. Let me tell you what worked for me. Or let me tell you my story, right, because my testimony is what is going to allow them to draw in and be vulnerable, open up, allow me to pour into them In the streets. They say trust. Nobody Trust to get you killed. Right, someone with lived experience. Come in and be able to sit down and build a rapport and speak and, you know, conversate with someone that is different. That's going to make a difference. That is vital. That is vital.

Speaker 2: 5:36

A person with lived experience is very useful for reducing violence. Whoever has a voice in the streets, that's really who we need. But that person had to have made a full change, right, have the heart to do this. And there's a lot of people like myself out there that has made a full change and they have a voice, but you don't know where they are because they don't think they have a place in the world because of their rap sheet. So with myself, I didn't have hope because I got feelings. I'm a feeling I'm known as a criminal. Right, I can't get a job, I can't do this, I can't do that.

Speaker 2: 6:17

So, guess what? I go back to what I know. So, guess what? I go back to what I know. I just choose to like, use my life, use my story to better the community, to better the youth, the children around me, because it started with me in the sixth grade, very young. So that's why I'm able to coach sixth grade football, pour into sixth graders, seventh graders, eighth graders, because that's where it starts and there was no discipline for us. And people wonder why the teenage violence is so big now. Because there's no consequences. If I get caught with a gun and you don't do nothing to me, guess what I'm telling the homies. They're not going to do nothing to me. So guess what? I'm going to continue doing what I want to do.

Speaker 1: 7:03

Being asked to be a credible messenger gave him purpose in his own life, and with that purpose he's now committed to showing others caught up in violence that there is another way forward.

Speaker 2: 7:14

Once someone gave me purpose, once someone accepted me and said Julius, I see you, I hear you. That stirred up something in me. So if I can be a leader and a voice in the streets, I can be a leader to correct and lead our youth from the streets and that's why my heart is so far in it. So I told myself I'm going to take full advantage of that to make the best to show my children right that, hey, it is possible. I'm not who they said I am.

Speaker 1: 7:48

He's working to shift the focus from punishment to rehabilitation by building bridges between courts, service providers and the community. In city after city, the presence of credible messengers like Julius has proven to be a turning point in saving lives.

Speaker 2: 8:05

To be able to lead them to resources, be able to lead them to the care that they need right. So the one thing I like about my job I'm able to provide resources to people and walk alongside them right. And if you just hear me talk to any one of my participants, where I've been knowing them all my life, it's the way I communicate with them. I'm able to deal with people in the court system, where I've been multiple times to be able to walk alongside them, to be able to advocate for them, to be their voice in front of a judge, right In front of a court team, in front of anyone, right From someone that has lived a life and been in the space they're in, been in a position they're in. I don't have the words to explain the way it makes me feel to be able to get a chance to do that, to be in front of a judge for the right reasons, because, at the end of the day, a person that has criminal charges, has outstanding fines, would never break the cycle, because the majority of the people are not employed, so they're guaranteed to go back to jail for failure to comply or failure to pay. This is going to be so important. This is vital. This is important for the people that's coming through there. That deserves second chances right, and this is a good way to give them a second chance. Hey, here are some resources. Let's pursue this. Let's let's get these things done right and that shows who deserves the second chance. Because you're giving them opportunity now. All right, you know you give them an opportunity to seek stability, because a lot of people that has criminal charge, they got them because they're not stable, they're in crisis and someone in crisis going to stay in crisis if they have lack of resources, if they have lack of help Right. So, at the end of the day, this program is very important for people, maybe people that's even trying but just can't reach that find that I have.

Speaker 2: 10:31

And I might not just have find here, I might have find there too. And when I give up, stability is nowhere in my sight Because it's too big for me to handle. Then I have three or four kids. I'm a single mom, a single dad. I hate life, but to have someone in the core system right Job is to see about me, to help me, walk alongside me, give me the resources I need. Someone that's going to answer the phone when I call someone is going to call me.

Speaker 2: 11:15

Follow-up is very important with the process. That's my biggest thing. I want to follow up with you, right, at least twice a month, because that's where the impact starts, with the follow-ups. Now I'm showing you I care, right, I can tell you I care all day. But if I don't show you how much do you trust me you don't.

Speaker 2: 11:45

To be able to see someone accept the help, the love, the resources that I'm able to give, it's selfish, the joy that I feel, right, because I knew that they wasn't educated on what I just told them. And I just wish, like Lord, I wish they could've received this a long time ago. You know what I mean. They probably wouldn't have caught that battery. If you give me a circle of five teenagers and I pull one of them out, give him purpose, build him up, give him all the resources, the other four is going to question bro, what did it take to do that? Like, what are you doing? How do I do it? And every gang member I know now loves to see me coming because I've changed and they see it. Situations like this, they're going to see it, but everyone I get want to know why and to be honest with you, two people one last week, week four last just got out of prison. Friends I grow with. It's like, dude, I want to do some stuff you're doing, like how do I get plugged in? Because they're going to want to know why are you so happy, why are you looking good, why are you so successful? Right, they don't want that too. It's just like we're doing wrong.

Speaker 2: 13:04

The young kid come over with a pocket full of money His friend see, he got a pocket full of money. Bro how you get that money Doing the right thing and you're being seen and heard draws that same crowd. That same crowd Because at first I saw you, you was an addict. First I saw you, you had your pants to your knees, right. Last time I saw you you know what I mean you had a bottle to your mouth. But now you have a light about you and I want to know I know you got caught with a million guns how you get that job. And I've received that Like how you get that job and I've received that Like how you get that job. They want to know why, and their curiosity is going to lead them to the hive.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Credible messengers remind us that change is possible. Their lived experience gives them a unique voice, one that can cut through fear, mistrust and hopelessness. They carry not only the story of where they've been, but the possibility of where others can go. Listen to A Shot at Hope on YouTube, apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, or go to smartjusticeorg.