For too long, many of our communities have suffered extreme levels of crime and violence. And for too long, our society has addressed gun violence with only one approach: arrest and incarceration.
But thanks to a 2021 law called the Reimagine Public Safety Act, Illinois is pursuing a viable and proven alternative that complements traditional law enforcement while offering people at risk a safe and legal off-ramp from the street life.
Under the Act, the state has invested in community violence intervention, under which community organizations hire trusted and respected community members to engage directly with individuals who are caught up in lives of gun violence. Specifically, outreach workers recruit men and women at highest risk of shooting or being shot into programs with a life coach, trauma treatment and the opportunity to return to school, train for jobs and find work in the legal economy.
Today, hundreds of graduates are working in a variety of industries, earning enough to pay rent, feed their families and live safely. But thousands more individuals need these services and a pipeline of teens and pre-teens are headed for street life unless we intervene.
Community violence intervention programs have now contributed to three straight years of declining gun violence in Chicago and put us on track to accomplishing something the city has not had in two decades: four consecutive years in which the number of shootings goes down. They also hold out the hope of meeting Mayor Brandon Johnson’s goal of under 500 homicides this year.
Saving lives
Research shows community violence intervention is making a positive difference. One study from Northwestern University found that graduates of Chicago CRED, a program founded by former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, are 74% less likely to get rearrested, a strong indication that they are living more safely and lawfully and no longer carrying a gun. Another study by the Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science at Northwestern credits a consortium of 15 local community violence intervention organizations — known as Communities Partnering 4 Peace— with preventing nearly 400 shootings over four years.
Yet another study evaluates the “Peacekeepers” Program, which has received considerable state funding in the last two years through the Reimagining Public Safety Act. According to Northwestern, peacekeepers in Chicago over the last two years successfully mediated nearly 2,000 street conflicts, any one of which could have led to a shooting. Outreach workers and peacekeepers have also negotiated dozens of “peace agreements” among active, armed street factions.
Under the peacekeepers program, anti-violence workers also occupy extremely dangerous areas of the city during periods of high conflict, such as evening weekends in the summer and major holidays like Memorial Day, Labor Day and New Year’s Eve. When these workers are on duty, shootings at these locations drop dramatically.
This is not about knocking the traditional criminal justice system. Police, courts and prisons still play a key role in our public safety system. But, in communities where a majority of homicides and virtually all non-fatal shootings never lead to an arrest, let alone a conviction, we need every tool in the toolbox.
Saving money
Among other things, violence intervention in Chicago also represents one of the nation’s biggest and most successful jobs initiatives for returning citizens. Today, roughly 2,000 individuals, many with “justice-involved” backgrounds, are employed doing work only they can do — tapping into the trust and respect they have with people caught up in the streets to make their communities safer.
In addition to saving lives and reducing trauma for thousands of gun violence survivors, community violence intervention can also save billions of dollars. By some estimates, each shooting in Chicago — both fatal and non-fatal — costs as much as $1 million in policing, prosecution, incarceration and, for non-fatal shootings, health care. With nearly 3,000 shootings in 2024 and over 4,400 just a few years ago (2021), that totals billions and billions of dollars over time.
Add in the economic loss of gun violence victims and the opportunity cost of community investments that are delayed or deferred due to gun violence — and the total annual cost of gun violence in Chicago could be as high as $6 billion to $7 billion.
Put that up against the average cost of recruiting, supporting, treating, educating and training an individual at risk, which is about $30,000, and the return on investment could be as high as 20 to one.
For all of these reasons, we are deeply grateful to Gov. JB Pritzker and our legislative leaders, and hope they will continue funding the Reimagining Public Safety Act. Continuing state support is especially critical right now, given the uncertainties in Washington, where the Trump administration recently put a hold on a $3.7 million grant to Chicago CRED.
We know violence intervention works. We know it saves lives. It is time to make community violence intervention a permanent feature of Illinois public safety.
State Rep. Justin Slaughter represents the 27th District. State Sen. Robert Peters represents the 13th District. They co-sponsored the Reimagine Public Safety Act.
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