Thursday, October 1, 2026
As the Rev. Kymberley Clemons-Jones was introducing the visiting presenters to her group of boys assembled at Valley Stream Presbyterian Church on April 28, she referred to the visitors as members of a program.
“Are we a program?” interrupted Suffolk County Deputy Police Commissioner Risco Mention-Lewis. The four men she brought with her responded in unison: “No!”
“We’re a …” Mention-Lewis continued.
“Movement!” the men shot back.
The visitors were presenting to boys in the church’s W.A.N.T.E.D. Program. Parents were also invited. The presenters were members of the Council of Thought and Action, an initiative that Mention-Lewis founded in Hempstead in 2008. Its initial goal was to address recidivism by creating a social and professional network for people with criminal records. Weekly meetings provided a confidential space for participants to talk about what was going on in their lives, what they wanted from life and what was holding them back, or what was working for them.
Mention-Lewis, then an assistant district attorney, developed a vernacular that imbued COTA with concepts that would appeal to the street entrepreneurs who represented much of Hempstead’s crime rate. Using the language of business, she introduced concepts like creating a written corporate plan for success and appointing a board of advisers for wise counsel, as well as psychological tools like identifying childhood injuries that were manifesting in adulthood as destructive patterns of thought and behavior.
COTA spread to multiple high-crime communities in Suffolk County, including Wyandanch and Huntington Station, as well as to Chicago.
