| Sumario: | The phenomenon of the credible messenger (CM) in anti-violence interventions in the United States has expanded greatly during the last decade or more. While the number of CMs has mushroomed along with their roles, there has been little attention paid to the agency of the subjects that makes these projects possible. In 2023–24, I led an evaluation study of such an intervention in New York City. Using an inductive analysis to discover emergent themes from qualitative interviews with CMs that centered on their: (1) life stories, (2) training, (3) field experience and (4) professional trajectories, I propose an outline of an integrated critical theory of the CM experience. Through this criminological intervention, I am seeking to take the praxes of these social actors to a new level of abstraction or theory extension. Such theorization produces insights that can enhance training and program implementation while deepening our understanding of both successes and failures in the field of positive justice.
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