Civic Committee's gesture is great but...
Plan fails to include the ideal cohort-the shooters
Chicagoans know that over the last decade or so there has been no shortage of ideas or attempts to stunt the growth of violence, particularly shootings. We have seen efforts ranging from women camping out on corners and passing out hot dogs to organizations doing university-level research to try and mitigate shootings and killings.
Now, we have the civic committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago flying in out of the blue and weighing in on how to make the violence reduction happen. The committee’s public safety task force announced the laudable goal of reducing homicides by 75 percent over the next decade. Their remedy is to pour millions more into anti-violence programs and initiatives city wide. According to the task force’s leader-Jim Crown-his group has been meeting and talking to an array of researchers and activists in other cities. No doubt the committee’s public safety task force is comprised of some really smart and insightful people. But how street smart are they?
All of this would sound encouraging if this task force seemed to have an idea of what is already in place on the anti-violence front. It is insulting for the city’s most well-heeled to announce they want to save the day, and at the same time ignore the literal blood, sweat and tears organizations such as BUILD Chicago and Communities Partnering for Peace (CP4P) have already done and continue to do.
Crown noted the task force will have a focus of helping establish “wrap around” services. Those usually include some degree of counseling, mentoring, job prep and tutoring. Had the task force looked closer to home rather than conferring with researchers from afar they would have found what they are proposing exists right here. Wouldn’t it make more sense to direct additional dollars to such organizations rather than try to start from scratch?
It also is obvious task force members overlooked the work of the Communities Partnering 4 Peace, better known as CP4P. This coalition of approximately 30 anti-violence organizations is already doing the work the task force members apparently want to address. Again, raising and directing additional dollars to augment CP4P’s work seems far more expeditious when it comes to tamping down violence.
CP4P is coordinated through the Institute for Nonviolence
The task force should do what hasn’t been done
The civic committee with the millions it plans to raise can do something that has yet to done and could go a long way toward violence reduction. That thing is is to convene a series of “shooter summits.” Of course the name can be changed but the concept is to bring together young men and women who have been involved in shootings and find out directly from them why they shoot and what would cause them to put down their guns.
Maybe it starts with the first step of an old program known as 36 PASS. The concept was if a person was out to shoot someone from a rival “clique” and saw that person with a family member the person would be given a pass. That pass often led to the would-be shooter calming down and not shooting anyone. To be effective it would take an aggressive PSA program along with an educational component.
As far as the summit goes, potential attendees should get assurances no one there will be arrested for past crimes, and Cook County Sheriff deputies or Illinois State Police troopers will be present to ensure no weapons are brought in.
In all of the efforts at violence reductions, shooters’ voices have not been asked for or heard en masse. They are really the only ones who can speak on what definitively will stop the shootings and killings