This experience, and a subsequent tour along the Freedom Rides routes with civil rights organisers, had fundamentally altered his beliefs about nonviolence, causing him to see it as an antidote to violence and a proactive approach to just ways of dealing with racism, poverty and violence. As a result of this change in belief, Alphin has developed some effective techniques to deal with the realities of crime, especially as experienced by young poor, urban males. The philosophy underlying the techniques is based on the ideas of M.L. King about the use of nonviolence to resolve deep social conflicts and inequities. When people can participate in the decisions that affect their lives, they can solve their own problems. Crime is a symptom, not a cause, and imprisonment and enforcement are not solutions.
Criminal violence is caused by learned values about appropriate responses to life conditions.
To test these insights in practice, Alphin took nineteen boys, some out of juvenile detention, to the M.L. King Center for exposure to notions about nonviolence as a way to live in the system. Alphin's trust in the boys not to run, the provision of an alternative supportive peer group and tours of the Freedom Rides routes had deeply affected the boys and for at least one individual, had given him such an interest in nonviolence, that he was teaching it to others and had succeeded in having it included in his high school history courses. One component of the crime prevention program has been the Godfather Program. The youths meet weekly and have to make commitments to attend school and participate in a weekly religious observance of some kind, to develop an understanding of a different source of viable answers for the problems of living. Another essential component of crime prevention has been community empowerment, which deals with unemployment and economic exploitation.