Written by Lexi Foley

Echoes of squeaky shoes and the clap of a basketball compete with the shouts of Corey Craddock as he stops the game for the tenth time to “dispute a call”—in reality, the aging man just needed a break. His team laughed as they recorded an interview of how he’d been feeling about his game. 

Because these courts are in the middle of a high-crime area, men walk through the doors of Carver Community Center and have their bags and coats checked. A security guard wands down their personnel to make sure no weapons are hidden. Chattanooga’s violent crime rate is 282% higher than the national average. One in 16 residents in Chattanooga is at risk of becoming a victim of violent crime. But despite the precautious entrance to the courts, Craddock found hope hooping with his brothers.

These are the 423 chain breakers. 

The program began as an attempt to reduce gun violence through violence interrupters and victim service advocates. The goal was to decrease gang-involved shootings by 25%. It was framed around two types of soldiers. Violence interrupters are boots on the ground serving the community through hands-on initiatives that connect the dots for the second kind of soldiers: victim service advocates. Victim service advocates work to find solutions for the deeper problems behind the crimes. The big question: what are the best ways to serve the community? They found the best way to break the cycle of crime and incarceration—to combat brutality and death—is intentional and consistent love. 

These people—Jamichael Caldwell, Dylan Bryant, Corey Craddock, Ricky Harper, Nate Carter (violence interrupters); Travis Smith II, LaTasha Lindsey, Pamela Slack (victim service advocates); Troy Rogers (public safety coordinator for the city of Chattanooga); Chris Sands (executive director of community safety and gun violence prevention in Chattanooga)—learned first love from each other. 

The chain breakers built this program from a couple of blueprints from Chicago’s existing violence reduction initiative and an understanding of how and why violent crime is so common in Chattanooga. It was a growing process, no doubt. There were countless tiring meetings held to get the program up and running; it took a long time to get such an unconventional proposal approved. But because the chain breakers were willing to respect each other and work together, the work was effective when it became approved. 

“Since I came on board, everyone has treated each other like family,” Bryant said. They were constantly around each other, grew together, and partnered with one another. 

Violence interrupters were built in the zones they pour into now. They’re people, whose combined time behind bars equals a lifetime, who have been exactly where the people they are trying to help are. People who understand the “why” behind crime instead of judging the criminal. 

The struggle for most was not defined by an innate desire to commit crimes. The struggle was rooted in a feeling of being trapped, surrounded by bars of violence and a cage of poverty.

“We all come from the same struggle,” Caldwell said. 

Deciding when, where, and how to combat crime was based on data collected from the government and state and given to the chain breakers. They found when and where the highest crime occurred, and events were planned in those areas at those specific times. 

“We program into violence,” Smith II said. 

Meaning they find the source and pour into the people there. The community responded with dropped weapons and open arms. Their programs fed the bellies, souls, and emptiness much of the community experience. 

“We try to fill a void and provide,” Smith II said. “At every event we serve food. We break bread together. It’s how we build relationships, share, and get to deeper things.”

They work to uncover the deeper things in the lives of those who have experienced loss—loss of opportunities, loss of family, loss of hope. 

The chain breakers are bringing those losses back from the dead. 

According to Rogers, illiteracy, a lack of a father in the home, immense poverty, and undiagnosed mental health disorders were the four root problems causing that loss. 

To begin fighting loss, the chain breakers went directly to where the wounds were. The team provided opportunities for students through programs at high schools across Chattanooga: Red Bank, Washington Alternative, Tyner, Orchard Knob—the list goes on—and kids are seeing their potential, unlocking their talents, and most importantly feeling seen and understood.

“One-to-10 how you feeling?”

That’s the first question somebody receives when they walk into a meeting with the chain breakers. The first thing the chain breakers want to do is check in with the person walking through the door. It’s seeing a person and letting them talk before they teach them. It’s trying to understand their situation and being an example instead of pushing ideas down their throats. They were meeting the students where they were—both in place and headspace. 

“We all come from the same struggle. It’s just something that simple—a connection,” Caldwell said. “Instead of, ‘you did wrong’, you hear their side of the story and give them an alternative. They aren’t listening to a sugar daddy, but they will listen to someone who’s been through it.”

They could see the chain breakers going to work, showing up to school each week just to be with the students. Because of the example the chain breakers were setting and the commonality between students and chain breakers, students could trust them. A different kind of light was visible in the lives of each chain breaker and inside each person the chain breakers touched and poured into. 

Kids were never taught what was negative and what was positive. With the chain breakers in the city, kids are watching people pick up their moms and help their moms get their families back on their feet. They watch the chain breakers working every day, not only helping others but building an income and life out of good work. 

“We would like to be assets to our community here instead of liabilities,” Carter said.

Watching the chain breakers work changed the definition of what is positive and negative. It’s about shifting culture, starting with forming lasting connections and then showing them what is possible. 

The chain breakers are “credible messengers… being able to hold that reputation of who they were before and carrying it into now… people seeing their change, hearing the words, their shift, and the mindset really allows them to be effective in the community,” Smith II said. 

And so the people who have been through it go straight to those who are going through it and show them hope. 

“For us, coming from that side and actually having jobs now, actually being advocates of not being that person; to be a man, that makes a difference,” Harper said. 

In the schools, hope was found in a fist bump, elevator pitches, and business ideas. It was found in kids’ laughter as they sat in a circle sharing life and in the rich voice of guest speaker Julius Burrows, yet another example of a man living in and offering ways to find freedom. For the chain breakers, offering hope was offering simple reminders of the goodness in this world. 

Hope could be found in pizza tables and frozens—a small piece of heaven made of ice, sugar, and Kool-Aid mix. It was found in the bed of a truck that became a playground for a collection of children. Hope became the smiles of the men serving food as the sun set behind the Bayberry apartments. 

“[There’s a] Long way to go and a short while to make it in. We’re making strides in the time we have together in order to see systemic change in the city,” Sands said. 

That’s the dream, to continue to heal the city as a whole and see a decrease in crime.

“We’re breaking a generational loop of failure one link at a time,” Carter said. But they were also “breaking you from the bound of chains. Get out of the mindset that you can’t do it. Everyone on the team is living proof that they can get out of the loop. We living proof that you can.”

According to Craddock, he’s the best hooper over 40 in the city of Chattanooga. He said it with a laugh while the eyebrows of his team raised around him.

Hope was found in the form of a basketball and men living proof of the promises they made: there is a way out. 

The smiles of the men could be heard through the swish of a net and the thwack of an airball. Here, where the biggest dispute was whether the ball was in or out, was the hope the chain breakers fought for. 

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Meet the Storyteller

Lexi Foley is a senior studying Communication with a minor in Criminal Justice at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Foley serves as the Editor in Chief of Rising Rock as well as the Sports Editor and staff photographer for the UTC Echo. She can be found running around Chattanooga with a keyboard and camera looking for stories of love, adventure, and tenacity. Using her background as a collegiate athlete, Foley’s passion is to inspire hope through highlighting human perseverance and heart. Find her work at https://www.theutcecho.com/ and https://foleyphotographs.smugmug.com/. Contact her at dmy375@mocs.utc.edu.