Todd Heisler/The New York Times
John Rivera, 19, during a New York Police Department juvenile intervention program visit.
Three police officers knocked on the apartment door of a 15-year-old boy.
He had already been on both sides of a police blotter: shot and
stabbed, but also arrested on robbery charges. He ran in an East Harlem
gang and lived with his grandmother on the seventh floor of a public
housing building, where the stairwells reeked of marijuana.
He was the type of teenager destined for trouble. And that was precisely
why the officers were at his door on a recent winter night.
The New York City Police Department
has embarked on a novel approach to deter juvenile robbers, essentially
staging interventions and force-feeding outreach in an effort to stem a
tide of robberies by dissuading those most likely to commit them.
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