Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 1-2025
Abstract
The phenomenon of the credible messenger in anti-violence interventions in the United States has expanded greatly during the last decade or more. While the number of credible messengers has mushroomed along with their roles, there has been little attention paid to the agency of the subjects that makes these projects possible. In 2023-4 I led an evaluation study of such an intervention in New York City. Using an inductive analysis to discover emergent themes from qualitative interviews with credible messengers that centered on their: (i) life stories, (ii) training, (iii) field experience and (iv) professional trajectories, I propose an integrated critical theory of the credible messenger experience. Through this criminological intervention, I take the praxes of these social actors to a new level of abstraction, producing insights to enhance training and program implementation while deepening our appreciation of both successes and failures in the field in the tradition of positive justice.
