Father Gregory J. Boyle, S.J., a Jesuit priest, was pastor from 1986 to 1992 of Dolores Mission, the poorest parish in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and home to the city’s highest concentration of gang activity. Father Boyle, whose motto is “nothing stops a bullet like a job,” directs Jobs for a Future and Homeboy Industries, two economic development programs that strive to reduce gang violence by helping at-risk youth find and maintain meaningful employment. Boyle will discuss his approach to addressing gang violence in a free public lecture titled Tattoos on the Heart: Empowering Gang Members on Wednesday, November 15 at 4 p.m. in UCSB Corwin Pavilion. Boyle will be accompanied by former gang members and clients of Dolores Mission’s economic development programs.

Jobs for a Future, a program of Dolores Mission’s Proyecto Pastoral that began in 1988, is an employment referral center that seeks gainful employment for at-risk youth. Prospective employers of entry-level workers with little or no work experience or skills are matched with youth who enter the program.

Also currently part of the Jobs for a Future program are Clean Slate, a free tattoo removal service to help former gang members overcome the prejudice their tattoos generate, and Release, an aftercare program directed toward incarcerated youth to help them make beneficial choices upon re-entry into the community.

Homeboy Industries, with large amounts of base funding from hip-hop radio station KPWR 106 FM, operates six businesses that employ around 70 young men and women, often rival gang members who now work side by side. After a couple of false starts, Homeboy Bakery successfully produces large quantities of bread for Frisco Baking Co. in Cypress Park. Homeboy Silkscreen designs and prints screens onto t-shirts which are pressed, folded and packaged in-house, and Homeboy Merchandising sells sweatshirts, golf shirts, mugs and caps featuring the Homeboy logo. Homeboy Production Cleaning Service cleans film sites; Homeboy Artesania creates one-of-a-kind art objects; and Homeboy Landscaping landscapes vacant properties.

Boyle, who has buried nearly 80 young people killed by gang violence, believes most approaches to gang violence to be ineffective. “Our failure to address the despair in our inner-city youth is only delayed by our over-confidence in a stance that is ‘tougher than thou,’” he says. “The three strikes law stands as a symbol of our overrated expectations in a ‘get tough’ approach to crime. The draconian spirit that seeks to enhance penalties and to lower the age at which juveniles will be tried as adults is part of the ‘whole cloth’ of three strikes.”

Boyle believes the “get tough” approach to gang activity reflects “the misconception that they are something less than human.” The Los Angeles Times printed last year a commentary by Boyle titled “We Have Met the Monster, and It Is Us” in which he illuminates how the scandal in the Rampart division of the Los Angeles Police Department shows the danger of a mind-set that dehumanizes and demonizes the other. In the article, Boyle writes that “the truest measure of ourselves as compassionate and civilized human beings is not how lavishly we honor our heroes, nor how tenderly we nurture our children, nor how politely we select our leaders. The real test comes in our treatment of the criminal. If the very thought of that makes us recoil, then we still have much work to do.”

Boyle was appointed in 1999 to the California Commission on Juvenile Justice, Crime and Delinquency Prevention. The Commission advises the Director of Youth Authority on department programs and delinquency prevention funding. Before becoming pastor of Dolores Mission, Boyle taught at Loyola High School, worked with Christian based communities in Bolivia and served as chaplain of the Islas Marias Penal Colony in Mexico and at Folsom Prison in California.

This event is presented in conjunction with UCSB Celebration of Communities Week by UCSB Arts & Lectures, Departments of Chicano Studies and Religious Studies, and Interdisciplinary Humanities Center as part of the Center’s Catholic Studies Research Focus Group lectures series.

For more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Roman Baratiak at (805) 893-2080.