Julian Daggett, a 19-year-old senior at Chicago’s Collins High School, served more than a year in Illinois prisons after a drug conviction. He’s struggling to cut ties to a gang that claims ABLA, the public-housing development where he grew up.
Chicago Public Radio invited Daggett to meet Azim Ramelize, assistant commissioner of the city’s Department of Children and Youth Services. Ramelize, 51, knows a few things about gangs. As a youth in New York City, he helped lead one. But his life changed in 1973, when a fight left him with a bullet in his back. He lost the use of his legs.
With people like Daggett in mind, some youth specialists say curbing gang violence might require taking a page from Chicago’s past.