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Last weekend, the Oakland rapper Philthy Rich, who is on probation for firearms possession, was arrested on charges of driving an allegedly stolen Bentley. He posted $30,000 bail.

Then he made plans to speak at an elementary school in support of nonviolence.

In a past era, youth mentors were expected to have squeaky-clean records. But Philthy Rich, whose birth name is Philip Beasley, is among a new generation of role models who are being welcomed into community outreach organizations. Their credibility with young people, these groups say, is bolstered by their experience growing up in Oakland’s high-crime neighborhoods, including run-ins with the law.

Philthy Rich has become a high-profile spokesman for local violence-prevention efforts. His arrest highlights a difference in perceptions between many police officers and leaders of nonprofit groups who are eager to reach jaded inner-city youth. Community organizers say young people can relate to rappers like Philthy Rich. The police simply consider Philthy Rich a criminal.

“One of our strategies is the use of unlikely messengers,” said Nicole Lee, executive director of the Urban Peace Movement, a violence-prevention organization.

“It’s predictable that I’m going to tell them to stop the violence,” she said. “But I haven’t lived the life that Philthy Rich has.”

In his music, Philthy Rich, 29, is boastful and blunt, borrowing from tragic memories of his youth in the Seminary in East Oakland, a neighborhood rife with guns and drugs. He grew up without his father and bounced frequently between homes. His first arrest, he said, was when he was 11, after he beat up another child and stole his bicycle. In 2007, he was arrested for selling cocaine.

In 2009, as he and his cousin were attending the memorial for a friend killed in a shooting, someone opened fire. His cousin, an aspiring police officer, was killed.

A natural self-promoter, Philthy Rich spoke of his cousin’s death and a dozen others on an episode of the Discovery Channel’s “Gang Wars.” He said he was done selling drugs, and teamed up with Lee and rappers and nonprofit groups to produce a CD called “Turf Unity.” Several months later, he was arrested for illegal firearms possession. He said he was carrying a pistol for protection.

But his criminal background did not dissuade Lee and others from entrusting Philthy Rich with their message of nonviolence. Like the rapper, young people eager for protection in Oakland’s high-crime areas find it very easy to obtain illegal guns, she said.

“Our approach is really about meeting people where they are,” Lee said.

This philosophy is shared across the city, particularly in areas with high concentrations of poverty and violence.

The City of Oakland’s street-outreach team, a group that walks the city’s crime hot spots, includes several former gang members. Some 60 to 70 percent of the young people hired by Youth Uprising, an East Oakland nonprofit group, have criminal records, said Olis Simmons, the group’s executive director.

That high proportion is “not coincidental,” Simmons said. “I go after them. Hell, somebody’s got to hire them. If you can turn them around, you turn the neighborhood around.”

Many Oakland police officers view these programs as condoning lawlessness. “It’s turned into a network of mediocre criminals,” one homicide detective said about Youth Uprising. (The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the news media.)

In 2010, when Too Short, the iconic Oakland rapper, was serving as a Youth Uprising counselor, he was charged with assaulting security guards at one of his shows in Idaho. The same year, another Youth Uprising employee was charged with murder and robbery.

For his part, Philthy Rich said he owned the car he was arrested in and planned to show a judge the registration papers to prove it. But he admitted that his criminal record made him an unlikely candidate for a youth mentor.

“At first it was hard, because I didn’t want to get up there, cursing and saying stop the violence, and then get up there and rap about the violence,” Philthy Rich said about his first performance at Youth Uprising. “Now I feel comfortable doing me.”