The Department of Justice report on the misconduct of the Baltimore Police Department does not absolve our communities from taking responsibility for drug abuse and distribution, gang violence and genocide, loitering and lack of ambition. In many ways, the culture of Baltimore, of which I have been a part, enables systemic abuse.

As the Justice report concludes, and our everyday life bears witness to, African Americans have absolutely and unequivocally suffered systemic oppression, economic disparities and social injustices that have contributed to broken communities and self-destructive behavior patterns. Nevertheless, some of us also have some deficiencies in our morals and value systems that, to overturn, will require summoning the accountability and resiliency of our ancestors who suffered injustices more directly.

I grew up in an urban community where many of us in our adolescence were violent offenders. We stole cars, robbed innocent bystanders, sold and consumed drugs and terrorized people for fun. It was the unhealthy organic response to living in a community with limited organized outlets to harness and develop our imaginations, impulses and intellects toward a more creative and productive future. Subsequently, the streets became the soil of our seeds. And it yielded crops that were unhealthy and unruly. The only way out of the cycle of poverty and violence was a personal choice and determination to be and do something else; the system certainly wasn't changing for us. And even in the wake of this scathing report, reform results are likely to take years — decades even. So it's up to each individual to make better choices. Unfortunately, everyone doesn't have the skill or will to break the chains of social and spiritual dysfunction.

Fast forward to my years as an institutionally educated, culturally exposed and career-oriented adult and parent: I now empathize with the justice system that seeks to protect and serve communities of concentrated poverty and violence. It's got to be tough. Our adolescent mindset about police then was that they were pigs and our enemies, and that mindset persists in young people to this day. Yet, many of us were and are guilty of wrongdoing. Back in my day, in the so-called 'hood, the Murphy Homes clique would roll 50 to 80 guys deep, beating up innocent victims who were catching the bus downtown (I was among the victims). We had a group of guys in Edmondson Village who would beat up unsuspecting people standing on the bus stop after school. Park Heights and Woodland, Edmondson and Loudon, Edmondson and Brice, Monroe and Fayette and so many others were open-air drug markets with hundreds of dealers and users stationed outside the corner stores. How do you mitigate that and all of the violence associated with it that traumatizes and terrorizes a community and its children?

While the DOJ report cites the overdue reforms of the BPD, I'm afraid that it further exacerbates the mentality of being victimized, rather than taking responsibility for our communities, our children and our character. While I understand the need to reform the patterns and practices of the police, it will not effectively change the patterns and practices of misguided and impoverished youth in the urban centers of America. True reform goes deeper than that; and we must all do our part.

Donte' L. Hickman is pastor of Southern Baptist Church in Baltimore City, Harford and Howard counties. His email is pastorhickman@me.com.