Give mayor’s violence cutting plan a chance
In the first test of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s new summer safety plan, three people were shot to death and at least 34 others were wounded.
It would be easy to label the safety initiative a failure. But let’s not do that too quickly. We owe the mayor — and ourselves as a city — a chance to see if her comprehensive approach to reducing violence can work.
Rather than simply flooding violent neighborhoods with police this summer, the mayor is bringing nearly every city agency together to flood communities with resources. There will be enhanced family activities, mentoring programs, outreach programs, violence interventions and counseling, among other services.
It’s a social experiment that will test the validity of what community activists have been preaching for decades — that violence is not solely a policing issue, but a social phenomenon deeply rooted in years of neighborhood neglect and diminished hope.
Lightfoot’s “all hands on deck” is a start — a good one too.
If the plan has an impact over the next four months, it could ultimately change the way we approach violence in this city in its entirety.
There was no reason to think we would get through the long Memorial Day weekend without multiple shootings. For as long as anyone can remember, this holiday has marked the start of the summer violence streak.
Breaking the cycle will take time and patience. It will require a long-term commitment from both inside and outside the communities that are most victimized. It can only happen through teamwork, mutual trust and determination.
Lightfoot seems to understand that you must dig below the surface to get to long-term solutions.
“We’ve seen far too many times what happens when young people and their families don’t have access to opportunity within their own neighborhoods,” Lightfoot said at a news conference last week. “Disinvestment deepens, cycles of poverty continue, hope disappears and unfortunately, violent crime may increase.”
Residents always have held the power to control what happens in their neighborhoods. They tend to forget it, though, because they have had to fend for themselves for so long. All they ever have asked of the city is to provide support, but mostly they’ve gotten criticism and broken promises.
This summer, the city is extending a hand to residents on the front line of the battle to save their communities. The city is standing with them through the worst of the killing seasons and has laid out a strategic plan to help them win.
Lightfoot finally has done what many of us have asked of her since she took office. We wanted to see a well-thought-out, comprehensive plan that brings together every element of city government to fight back against neighborhood violence.
We had hoped the business community would come through with summer jobs and training programs. Maybe they will step up their game as they recover from the COVID19 pandemic.
We are not naive enough to think that the mayor’s plan is the definitive answer. But we needed her to prove that curbing violence is a top priority of her administration and that she is willing to use every resource available to secure the safety of Black and brown children who are most at risk.
Throwing people in jail doesn’t stop the cycle of violence. There are too many young men waiting in the wings for an opportunity to step into their place.
Paying attention to what law-abiding residents have to say can make a difference. Community resources can help too. Services can. Interventions can. Mentoring can. And rapid responses can. All of that is on the safety agenda this summer.
Using data from the last three summers, the city identified the 15 most violent police beats. Beats are ultra-specific areas that allow officials to pinpoint activity to the neighborhood block level.
The 15 beats are located throughout the South and West sides, ranging from Austin, North Lawndale, West Garfield Park and West Humboldt Park to South Chicago, Roseland, Auburn Gresham and South Shore.
According to Lightfoot, these 15 beats account for more than 50% of the violence in our city. Making a meaningful difference in these areas, she said, will impact public safety throughout Chicago.
That’s because violence has no boundaries. We’ve seen it spread to places where it has more economic impact — the Gold Coast, downtown and affluent neighborhoods to the north.
Personnel from various city departments, including libraries, public parks, public health, fire and police, Chicago Public Schools, streets and sanitation and family support services, have been working with residents, community organizations and faith leaders to identify specific needs.
Libraries will offer special programs on the weekends. The popular “Rollin’ Recreation” activity vans are returning to the parks, offering sports, games and fitness activities for families.
Close attention will be paid to improving the quality of life. Simple things, such as removing unwanted graffiti, filling potholes, cleaning empty lots, repairing damaged buildings and replacing burned out streetlights will be a priority in these areas.
Information will feed into the Summer Operations Center, where staff will monitor the violence and deploy resources, including law enforcement, intervention experts and other services, as needed.
This “whole of government” approach is exactly how public safety is supposed to work, Lightfoot said.
She’s right. Chicago’s violence didn’t just appear out of nowhere. The city created the environment that allowed it to fester. It will take a citywide effort to end it.