Latest news with #ReimaginePublicSafetyAct
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Programs are leading to reduction in Chicago gun violence, leaders say
CHICAGO (WGN) — State and local leaders credit a state-funded anti-violence program with what they say has lead to a significant decline in gun violence in Chicago and throughout Illinois. Several community organizations focused on anti-violence efforts joined Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker Thursday morning at the Pullman Community Center near East 103rd Street and South Woodlawn Avenue to tout progress made as a result of the Reimagine Public Safety Act. Pritzker signed the act into law three years ago, creating of the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention. The group is responsible for awarding grants to organizations rooted in helping reduce gun violence, including the Chicago-based Peacekeepers Program. The Peacekeepers' interventionists are deeply connected to neighborhoods harmed by violence and help mediate before and after crimes occur. Peacekeepers currently serve 40 communities and dozens of violence hotspots throughout the city. The group, along with other outreach workers, have helped in more than 2,000 mediations and negotiations that have lead to peace, officials said. According to a Northwestern University report, the efforts in 27 city and eight suburban communities served by the Peacekeepers Program resulted in a 31% reduction in gun violence in 2023 and 2024 compared to the previous two years. 'There is a clear correlation between the work of Peacekeepers and the declines in gun violence at hotspots and their surrounding communities,' said professor Andy Papachristos. Mayor Johnson said Chicago has seen a 23% decrease in homicides so far this year. He's set a goal of bringing the number of homicides to fewer than 500 this year, a number not reached since 2019. 'It's not one thing that is causing the decline in violence. I said this when I ran for office and what I've been saying since the last 20 months: It's going to take all of us to build a better, stronger, much safer Chicago.' James Mitchell once caused trouble on the streets but now works with the Crisis Prevention Response Unit that aims to connect with young people involved in so-called 'teen takeover' gatherings. 'We want the kids to come out, but we want them to enjoy it peacefully,' he said. The Crisis Prevention Response Unit is also funded through the state's Reimagine Public Safety Act. 'Frankly, the work that you do can't be done without you, the hard work that you do on the ground every single day,' Pritzker said. City data indicates that gun violence has declined in six of the last eight years and is down 35% this year. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Chicago's Peacekeeper program credited for 41% drop in gun violence
CHICAGO, Ill. (WTVO) — Gun violence in Chicago is down 41% according to a new study from Northwestern University. Gov. JB Pritzker credited the Peacekeeper Program, which trains residents to de-escalate conflicts in high-crime neighborhoods, for contributing to the downward turn. The Illinois Office of Firearm Violence Prevention implemented the Peacekeeper strategy in 2023, which was adopted by the state. The Illinois Department of Human Services oversaw the Citywide Crisis Prevention and Response Unit, described as a highly mobile team that is specifically designed to prevent violence and address conflict and crises in the City of Chicago.' In 2023, 30 trained, neighborhood 'Peacekeepers' were sent into Chicago's most neighborhoods. That number grew to 1,213 in 2024, who were active in 27 Chicago Community Areas and 8 Cook County suburbs. The report said six Peacekeepers died while on the job: two from natural causes and four from fatal shootings. The Peacekeeper program is funded by the , a $250 million anti-violence initiative created as a reaction to the murder of George Floyd. Cities nationwide began to rethink the role of law enforcement following nationwide protests and civil unrest over Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis Police officer. The Peacekeepers are part of a 'community-focused' approach to addressing violent conflict, with members undergoing training in crowd de-escalation tactics, crisis intervention, and referrals to mental health or substance abuse programs. The program was 'designed to center equity in anti-violence work, ensuring that the staff deployed to serve communities are representative of and share backgrounds with those communities.' 'Corner by corner, block by block, and neighborhood by neighborhood – we are freeing our communities from the age-old patterns of crime and violence,' Pritzker said on Thursday. 'From Day One, violence intervention and reduction has been a focus of my administration, and I established the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention and worked with the General Assembly to pass the Reimagine Public Safety Act to organize and support efforts such as these exactly because I believed these kind of results—and more—were possible.' Northwestern's Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science found a 31% reduction in gun violence from 2023 to 2024, compared to the two previous years, with a 41% decline in high-crime neighborhoods. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Yahoo
WTTW documentaries highlight ‘people creating conditions for peace'
On the first day WTTW videographers filmed Damien Morris at work in Garfield Park, they responded to the scene of a shooting, a hospital where one of Morris' colleagues had a son being treated for a gunshot wound and an event for Morris' organization, Breakthrough Chicago. '(Director) Teresa (White) was like, 'Wow, that was an eventful first five hours,'' Morris said. 'And I was like, 'Well, welcome to my life.'' Morris is one of five subjects in WTTW's latest 'Firsthand' documentary series, an annual set of films and programming focused on different social issues. This year's five short films follow a range of interventions, from street outreach to a restorative justice court in North Lawndale to conflict mediation, all geared toward reducing interpersonal violence in Chicago. Executive producer Dan Protess said he'd wanted to showcase community violence interventions since he'd worked on a previous series about gun violence years ago. 'I wanted to show stories of people who were creating conditions for peace,' he said. Protess added that one of his goals with the series was to make a case that these interventions are 'a vital city service, the same way policing and firefighting and ambulances emergency responders are considered to be essential city services.' Protess also said he wanted to highlight how 'fragile' support can be for the organizations covered in the series. Morris' organization, the Garfield Park-based Breakthrough, has recently been in the news alongside other nonprofits who were concerned about what a potential federal funding freeze might mean for them. Violence intervention groups typically receive money from state, local and private philanthropic sources. Illinois' Reimagine Public Safety Act, which became law in 2021, sets aside roughly $240 million for violence prevention programs throughout the state. Civic leaders announced $100 million in funding for anti-violence work last year, and Gov. JB Pritzker has called for more consistent funding to these programs after years of instability. In the 2010s, CeaseFire Illinois, which later became part of CureViolence, was often forced to lay off its workers due to funding issues. A push to address spikes in firearm violence in 2016 and 2020 brought a new wave of public interest in peacekeeping in particular, which relies on the connections of former or still-involved gang members to snuff out conflicts and curb violence. Kathryn Bocanegra, a University of Illinois Chicago scholar of social work who will give a lecture in connection with the series, said the average Chicagoan 'probably has no clue what (peacekeeping) is.' But the documentary series, she said, would contribute to a broader public discussion of how to incorporate violence intervention into public safety. A significant amount of the work highlighted in the series hinges on person-to-person relationships. Morris is shown engaged in many of the relationships that power his work throughout his segment but also draws a line about the presence of a camera crew when he's shown pulling up to Mount Sinai Hospital to speak to a peacekeeper whose son had just been shot. 'Because this is a sensitive matter, I won't be able to film this part,' he says, sitting in a van outside the hospital. Morris later described that point in the film as 'a very vulnerable, intense moment' where the production had to defer to the situation. Cedric Hawkins, another subject of the series, who works with the nonprofit Chicago CRED, said it was challenging to have cameras present at critical response moments, like speaking to a group of boys and young men in North Lawndale whose friend had just been killed. He'd only gotten to know that group in the last year, he said, and had originally only planned to visit the shooting site with the camera crew. But they ran into some of the group out on the block and they became a part of the final documentary. 'I didn't even want to bother them,' he said. '(But) once you catch these youngsters, and you show them something different that can help them, then you're just a big homie in a different way.' The series premieres Monday.
Chicago Tribune
17-02-2025
- Chicago Tribune
WTTW documentaries highlight ‘people creating conditions for peace'
On the first day WTTW videographers filmed Damien Morris at work in Garfield Park, they responded to the scene of a shooting, a hospital where one of Morris' colleagues had a son being treated for a gunshot wound and an event for Morris' organization, Breakthrough Chicago. '(Director) Teresa (White) was like, 'Wow, that was an eventful first five hours,'' Morris said. 'And I was like, 'Well, welcome to my life.'' Morris is one of five subjects in WTTW's latest 'Firsthand' documentary series, an annual set of films and programming focused on different social issues. This year's five short films follow a range of interventions, from street outreach to a restorative justice court in North Lawndale to conflict mediation, all geared toward reducing interpersonal violence in Chicago. Executive producer Dan Protess said he'd wanted to showcase community violence interventions since he'd worked on a previous series about gun violence years ago. 'I wanted to show stories of people who were creating conditions for peace,' he said. Protess added that one of his goals with the series was to make a case that these interventions are 'a vital city service, the same way policing and firefighting and ambulances emergency responders are considered to be essential city services.' Protess also said he wanted to highlight how 'fragile' support can be for the organizations covered in the series. Morris' organization, the Garfield Park-based Breakthrough, has recently been in the news alongside other nonprofits who were concerned about what a potential federal funding freeze might mean for them. Violence intervention groups typically receive money from state, local and private philanthropic sources. Illinois' Reimagine Public Safety Act, which became law in 2021, sets aside roughly $240 million for violence prevention programs throughout the state. Civic leaders announced $100 million in funding for anti-violence work last year, and Gov. JB Pritzker has called for more consistent funding to these programs after years of instability. In the 2010s, CeaseFire Illinois, which later became part of CureViolence, was often forced to lay off its workers due to funding issues. A push to address spikes in firearm violence in 2016 and 2020 brought a new wave of public interest in peacekeeping in particular, which relies on the connections of former or still-involved gang members to snuff out conflicts and curb violence. Kathryn Bocanegra, a University of Illinois Chicago scholar of social work who will give a lecture in connection with the series, said the average Chicagoan 'probably has no clue what (peacekeeping) is.' But the documentary series, she said, would contribute to a broader public discussion of how to incorporate violence intervention into public safety. A significant amount of the work highlighted in the series hinges on person-to-person relationships. Morris is shown engaged in many of the relationships that power his work throughout his segment but also draws a line about the presence of a camera crew when he's shown pulling up to Mount Sinai Hospital to speak to a peacekeeper whose son had just been shot. 'Because this is a sensitive matter, I won't be able to film this part,' he says, sitting in a van outside the hospital. Morris later described that point in the film as 'a very vulnerable, intense moment' where the production had to defer to the situation. Cedric Hawkins, another subject of the series, who works with the nonprofit Chicago CRED, said it was challenging to have cameras present at critical response moments, like speaking to a group of boys and young men in North Lawndale whose friend had just been killed. He'd only gotten to know that group in the last year, he said, and had originally only planned to visit the shooting site with the camera crew. But they ran into some of the group out on the block and they became a part of the final documentary. 'I didn't even want to bother them,' he said. '(But) once you catch these youngsters, and you show them something different that can help them, then you're just a big homie in a different way.'
