The department held its second "drug-market intervention" last week. The program gives non-violent dealers a chance to reform their lives or be arrested.

After presenting evidence of the offenders' criminal activity, police ask the dealers to attend a meeting where community members urge them to stop selling drugs. If they agree, the community members will help the dealers change their lives, including with education and employment.

If they don't agree, or don't show up, they're arrested.

Last year, eight people took the department's offer. Two have been rearrested on new charges.

The latest intervention was held at Shepherd's House United Methodist Church. Investigators invited nine offenders. A woman and three men, each between 21 and 35, showed up. About 60 other people -- residents, public officials and police -- were there as well. The woman denied dealing drugs until officers presented the evidence against her.

"The community seemed to be pretty united in one message that the violence has to stop," said Capt. Ray Taylor. "As a police department we don't want to come in here and arrest these guys for the sake of arresting. We want to stop the violence and drug dealing. If we can do that without arresting, it's better for all of us."

Durham, along with other police departments across the county, started its program after High Point police started interventions in 2004. Police there noticed reductions in crime and improvements in community and race relations.

Durham's effort is one of a number of measures aimed at reducing crime in the Bull's Eye, a two-square-mile area in East Durham police have focused on since August 2007.

Crime data showed the area accounted for a disproportionate number of aggravated assaults, robberies, validated gang member addresses and prostitution offenses between May 2006 and April 2007. After two years, shots fired calls are down 25 percent, violent gun crimes by 39 percent, prostitution calls by almost half, drug calls by 29 percent and all violent crime by 35 percent, according to police numbers.

Keeping those numbers down involves providing mentors, education and jobs to those who need them, said Melvin Whitley, a community activist who lives in the area.

"Nothing plants a seed of hope like reaching an accomplishment, getting that GED," he said. "If they can accomplish something, that'll broaden their perspective. We have to develop opportunities to sit down someplace and learn or it's not going to work. Just telling them we have evidence against you and [don]t] break the law is not enough, because they still have to eat and sleep."

The four offenders were grateful for their second chance, said Marcia Owen, outreach coordinator for the Religious Coalition for a NonViolent Durham.

"I hope they understood that we're sticking to them like glue and we will be here to overcome the obstacles, do the problem solving and achieve their goals," she said.

The offenders will meet with the Police Department's Project Safe Neighborhoods to determine their needs and create an action plan, Owen said.

"It takes relationships," she added. "Programs are great, but what it takes for this to work, it takes a personal relationship. I have never done anything on my own. I've always had an aide, someone to encourage me. Nobody does anything on their own, and so you can have thousands of programs but if you don't have the kind of support and encouragement and affirmation and good help to access all those services, they're for nothing."