A Summer in Camden

A boy walks by a wall of crosses on Jasper Street in Camden, N.J., on July 17, 2013. There are 67 crosses, each symbolizing a homicide that occurred in 2012.

In 2013, photographer Andrew Renneisen spent the summer in Camden, N.J., during a moment of transition: After reaching a record-high 67 reported homicides in 2012, the city had taken the drastic step of eliminating its police department and replacing it with a county force that would focus on street patrols and community relations, among other reforms.

His series, “Violent Times: Crime in America’s Cities,” captures the people he met in Camden, and includes some of his prior newspaper photography. Many of his subjects had been directly harmed by or had lost friends and family to gun violence. Says Renneisen, “I once had a chance to speak with a priest in Camden named Jeff Putthoff, who described the cycle of violence very simply: ‘Hurt people are going to hurt people.’ ”

Brooklynn Bailey, 13, embracing 14-year-old Nasser Alradaer on Aug. 11, 2011. Alradaer’s uncle, Norman Alhout, was murdered that year in the grocery store he owned in the Browntown neighborhood of Wilmington, Del.

Family members weep as the casket of Alexander Kamara is lowered into the ground on Saturday, July 21, 2012. Kamara, 16, was a promising student and soccer player who wanted to go to college. He was killed in the crossfire of a shooting that took place during an afternoon soccer tournament in Wilmington, Del.

A young boy holds his father’s hand at the funeral for 16-year-old Alexander Kamara on July 21, 2012.

Zach “Zooty Bang” Taylor mourned by friends and family at a funeral home in Mays Landing, N.J., on June 25, 2012. An aspiring rapper, Taylor was 19 when he was shot in Atlantic City’s Westside, making him the city’s ninth homicide victim in 2012.

A young girl looks out of a window of her home in the Back Maryland neighborhood of Atlantic City on July 14, 2012.

Jorge Categena, 11, was hit by a stray bullet two years ago on his way to a corner store in Camden. He is missing one eye and is blind in the other as a result of the shooting.

Women pray on June 29, 2013, the one-year anniversary of or Qua’Nyrah Houston’s death.

Montika Lowe displays a memorial cross in her daughter’s room on June 27, 2013. The daughter, Qua’Nyrah Houston, 15, and her boyfriend were killed in 2012 in a fire, which was later ruled by police to be arson. No one has been charged in the killing.

The new Camden County Police Force practices a mobilization drill on Aug. 7, 2013.

Ron-Ron kisses his girlfriend, Daija, at the baby shower for their second son on Aug. 1, 2013. Ron-Ron dropped out of school and has been selling drugs on Camden’s Northside since he was 13.

Keisha Boone makes breakfast for the six children she looks after on Aug. 10, 2013. Keisha is one of many single mothers living in Camden. Her first husband was shot and killed, and the father of her youngest child is in jail.

Ron-Ron, a resident in the Fairview neighborhood of Camden, displays his tattoo on Aug. 3, 2013. His hand reads “CMD” which stands for “Camden’s Most Dangerous.” “You got to rep where you are from,” he says.