Meet the Man Tasked with Reducing Youth Violence in Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS — Ransom Place meant a lot to Ralph Durrett Jr. when he was a young man.

On the west corner, nestled between Indiana Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street, everyone knew each other’s names. If her grandmother needed sugar, she sent her to Miss Geraldine’s down the block. And if Miss Geraldine needed anything, she came to them.

The area also holds the title of the most intact of the 19^th19th century African-American neighborhood in Indianapolis.

But as in any neighborhood, Durrett notes, trouble breaks out from time to time. Drugs, crime, sometimes violence.

“These things were there,” he recalls. But they didn’t define the region, or shape him as a person.

But what influenced Durrett most was the now-closed YMCA near 10th Street and Fall Creek Parkway North Drive. The facility served as a haven for kids to play basketball or swim with after-school kids.

“They were looking out for us,” he said of the workers.

Durrett is drawing on those experiences to take on a role never before held in Indianapolis. Earlier this month, he was named the city’s chief violence prevention officer, a position officials created specifically to curb the city’s growing problem of youth violence.

The job description is as daunting as it is new. Shootings and murders among youth 17 and under have continued to rise, even as the city’s homicide rate has fallen to near pre-pandemic levels after hitting a historic peak in 2021. Critics have blamed a range of theories — absentee parents, easily accessible guns or a broken justice system.

More: Stories of growing youth violence in Indy shock consciences. But not everyone has given up

In March, Indianapolis’s fight against youth violence was thrust into the national spotlight when a minor dispute between teenagers escalated downtown, leading to the shootings of seven juveniles, all between the ages of 12 and 16.

Durrett’s new role, housed under the Office of Public Health and Safety, is to prevent teens from going down the wrong path before the opportunity presents itself.

But when you’re working with children whose brains are still developing, who often bring up the harsh reality that drug dealing makes more money than many odd jobs, it seems impossible to sell them on the idea of making the right choice.

Yet, faced with the grim reality, Durrett maintains a calm and approachable attitude.

“I don’t have a magic wand that can fix this today, tomorrow or a month from now,” he said. “But I will be visible, I will be intentional, I will be present.”

It’s the same mantra Durrett repeated to himself throughout his professional and academic life. He earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from IUPUI and then a juris doctorate from Indiana University McKinney School of Law.

He also saw firsthand how young people can change, as evidenced by his volunteer work with a group of East Side boys. He focused on changing their worldview, not their personality. He gave the example of a program he called “Heroes vs. Villains,” which teaches kids that superheroes and villains often share similar traits and traumatic upbringings. What differentiates them, he said, is how they interact with the world.

More: What Indianapolis High School Students Think About Violence in the City and How to Fix It

He believes the same concept can be extended to the entire city.

“It’s like planting a seed. But it’s not just planting the seed and hoping it grows, but cultivating the environment for it to flourish,” he said.

To do this, he plans to expand community-based youth organizations, such as New BOY and Groundwork Indy, that serve at-risk teens and strengthen healthy neighborhoods.

For those already entangled in the criminal justice system, it aims to provide resources to help them navigate the courts.

It’s by providing these resources, or “tools” as Durrett calls them, much like the mentors and YMCA he attended growing up, that he believes the ship will turn.

“The biggest misconception is that young people are out there on their own, in the Wild West,” he said. “I think there are a lot of great parents, guardians and adults in these kids’ lives who care about them. They need to have stronger tools to mentor and nurture them.”

Contact reporter Sarah Nelson at [email protected]