Police Turn to Buddhist Monks to Prevent Crime
June 20, 2003
A shaven-headed Buddhist monk swathed in a saffron robe, the Venerable Sao Khon seems an unlikely crimefighter. But he might be one answer to violence on the streets of Lowell, Mass.
Police are planning to refer Southeast Asian American youths who have run away from home to the Cambodian-born monk and his brethren to provide moral and religious guidance. Police hope to catch kids at a crucial point — and keep their lives on track.
And Khon is more than glad to do it. Solemn and forbidding at first encounter, the 68-year-old monk’s face crinkles into a bright smile when talking about the program.
“They need to understand the difference between good and bad and they may not understand that,” he said through a translator. “The kids need to talk about their problems to the monks and then the monks will show them which way is bad and which way is good.”
It is not the first time that law enforcement has turned to religious leaders for help with youth crime. Ministers were enlisted, for example, in the battle against violence in Boston’s black community in the 1990s, a program that has become a national model.
But the program is unusual for the Cambodian American community. Khon, who is president of an association of 80 Cambodian Buddhist temples nationwide, said that he hadn’t heard of a similar venture elsewhere.
Lowell, 30 miles north of Boston, is a former mill city with a population of about 105,000. Nearly one-fifth of its residents are Asian Pacific American, according to the U.S. Census, including a large contingent of Cambodian Americans who arrived in the 1980s, fleeing a country torn apart by the Khmer Rouge.
“I look at this as early intervention,” said Capt. Bob DeMoura, who will be meeting with six families this coming week to discuss the program. “We’re offering them something that maybe they need.”
The Southeast Asian influence is obvious in the city’s Highlands section, where DeMoura commands a precinct. Across the street from the station, stores tout their wares in both English and Khmer.
A nearby playground was filled with shouts and banter in Khmer as dozens of young men battled each other in volleyball.
Straddling his silver spray-painted bike, Kevin Yaing, 12, said he’d be open to talking to a monk.
“They know a lot,” he said. He also offered — quietly — that he actually wanted to become a monk himself, “but I know it’s a long process.”
Vearsna Khath, 14, astride another bike, said, “I would be, like, ‘Tell me.’ I’d be glad to listen.”
But a few blocks away, Vannara Nhar, 13, sat on a stoop with one hand in a bag of Cheetos and the other clutching a Kool-Aid. He was a little cooler to the idea.
“I think if they, like, talk to us, it would be boring. We’ll talk, but it would be boring,” he said.
DeMoura said he was concerned about a rising tide of violence related to Southeast Asian American gang rivalries. Just two weeks ago, for example, he said, a dispute between two gangs resulted in a stabbing followed the next day by a retaliatory shooting.
The usual police tactics just haven’t seemed to work, prompting the veteran cop to seek alternatives.
“We’re just not getting through to the kids,” he said.
The program will focus initially on first-time runaways because police data indicate that runaways tend to commit more crimes later in life. The counseling might eventually be offered to kids who are having truancy problems — or even as an alternative sentence for minor crimes, like disorderly conduct or assault and battery.
Soth said she believed that youths of Cambodian ancestry still have respect for monks, despite their immersion in American society and would be receptive.
In an interview at his residence next to his temple in the neighboring town of Chelmsford, Khon said he would meet with the parents of the youths to gain a better understanding of them and then envisioned talking to the youths two to three times a week.
He also foresaw holding a religious retreat where the youths would meditate and learn about Buddhist philosophy.
“It’s good,” he said of meditation. “Good medicine.”
— Martin Finucane
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