* Clarence Page avoids the easy route of angrily venting hyperbolic vitriol about crime and gun violence in his latest column…
But I did find some good news from Gary Slutkin, the University of Illinois at Chicago epidemiologist who founded Cure Violence, formerly known as CeaseFire, an anti-violence program that has been adopted by more than 20 other cities, including New York and Los Angeles.
Last year I wrote about how Slutkin had predicted a rise in violence when the program lost its state funding amid prolonged political gridlock. Unfortunately Slutkin turned out to be right. The only districts that didn’t experience a surge were two that found funding elsewhere.
Hmm.
* Now, let’s take a look at one of Page’s older columns from late December of 2016…
More than 750 people were killed in Chicago in 2016, the highest total since 1997, and more than 4,300 were wounded by firearms.
Dr. Gary Slutkin, the University of Illinois at Chicago epidemiologist who founded the CeaseFire Illinois violence-reduction program also known as Cure Violence, warned Gov. Bruce Rauner in a March 2015 letter of a probable surge in Chicago shootings if the program’s funding was not restored. […]
After a 2007 interruption in funding by Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, for example, the program shut down 15 sites and shootings spiked. Funding was restored a year later — and violence returned to its previous level.
So, the governor was warned in 2015 and for good reason. Shootings spiked the last time the program’s funding was slashed. And then, just as predicted, they spiked again. This stuff can be measured. (Rahm Emanuel also cut its funding, by the way.)
* Let’s go back to Page’s most recent column…
But after funding was restored this year, Slutkin told me in a telephone interview, gun-related violence in the affected districts “dropped by 30 percent in the first six months of this year.”
Unlike more traditional programs, Cure Violence doesn’t focus on root causes of violence or saving one child at a time. Its “violence interrupters,” some of whom are ex-offenders themselves, focus on individuals who have a beef that can lead to the sort of retaliatory attacks that boil up behind most of the city’s homicide statistics.
Slutkin came up with the idea while working with the World Health Organization to fight AIDS, cholera and tuberculosis epidemics in Africa. Treat violence as if it were a virus? That’s the idea and it works, according to a 2008 Justice Department evaluation and various university studies.
All emphasis added.
* Policing, racism, morality, economic development, lead in water and guns are all issues that we can (and probably should) debate ad infinitum. But there is something in front of our very eyes which is proven to work right now and desperately needs more support. Is it the be-all, end-all? Nope. Don’t be silly. There is no such thing.
But violence interruption programs measurably and consistently work, and yet they are constantly short-changed or even cut altogether. That makes zero sense to me.
Look, if giving the police a cool new weapon was shown to lower violence then I’d bet every cop on the planet would have that weapon ASAP. So, if we absolutely must, then let’s start thinking of violence interruption as a weapon against violence. For the umpteenth time, it’s something we know that actually works to reduce violence. Get on with it, already.
…Adding… The JB Pritzker campaign reached out to point me to a Tribune story that we discussed last week…
He encouraged an injection of funding for on-the-street violence interruption groups in the short term.
“I’m just reminding you that it is that massive defunding that occurred and the unwillingness and, you know, lack of responsibility that this governor has taken for the defunding of our human services that has led to this problem,” Pritzker said.
“This is not a one-day. It’s not like it happened only one time. It’s been happening consistently over the last few years and look at the timeline,” he said. “It’s true that our (increased) violence around the state of Illinois, not just the city of Chicago, has been almost concurrent with the defunding of those services that people rely upon. Those are their connection to civilized society and when they’re gone and they close down, you can’t snap your fingers and put ’em back.”
* Related…
* The Doctor Who Tries to Cure Gun Violence By Treating It Like a Contagious Disease: People act because of the way they were treated by others — i.e., they pick up these behaviors in subconscious ways — and the brain is hardwired to copy other behaviors. Contagion means that something is contagious if it produces more of itself. Flu begets more flu, for example. The same principle is also true for violence, though it’s not true for everything: High blood pressure, for example, doesn’t cause other people to have high blood pressure. With violence, it’s just what we empirically see in nature — the greatest predictor of violence is exposure to a preceding event of violence. We also know there’s an underlying process that causes this to happen: There are neurons on the brain that cause copying, which is the principle way people pick up all kinds of behavior. Violence is a very powerful type of behavior for copying because it’s so electric and emotional that it actually causes even more copying. These are predicable biological processes.
- Moe Berg - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 9:53 am:
Amen, Rich. Thank you for writing it.
- A Jack - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 10:12 am:
Violence interruption makes logical sense. Historically some of the most violent periods in Chicago history were due to retaliatory escalation of gang violence. And former offenders would be trusted more than the police.
- MOON - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 10:18 am:
I am curious as to why my recent comment was deleted.
Do you disagree with my conclusions or did I offend somebody?
- wordslinger - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 10:20 am:
Good on Page and Cap. Fax. Both Rauner and Emanuel need to explain why they both have it in for this program. The money’s chump change compared to the cost of more shootings.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 10:22 am:
===Do you disagree with my conclusions===
There was no conclusion. It was an asinine statement. Also off-topic.
- A Jack - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 10:47 am:
I am glad that the parent comment was deleted. Blaming parents is a cop out and does nothing in developing a solution to this serious problem.
I suspect you have just as many bad parents in the wealthiest suburbs of Chicago as in the poorest sections.
- MOON - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 10:48 am:
There was a conclusion.
The topic is related to street violence and I gave my opinion of a partial cause and solution.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 10:52 am:
===of a partial cause and solution===
lolol
You said nothing would change unless something something that can’t be legislated. Ridic.
- MOON - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:05 am:
RICH
Legislation does not solve all of societies problems.
- Archpundit - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:12 am:
The Governor and Emanuel need to explain why they thought these cuts were okay. It may feel better to them to blame Madigan or whatever excuse Emanuel makes, but this is on them. They had a policy that by all evidence is effective and they let it collapse.
All the garbage about the Turnaround Agenda and whatever message Emanuel has won’t have as much positive effect as this does, but it wasn’t the priority. Instead, the Mayor has the gall to claim it was because of other people’s values.
No Rahm, it’s your values that are failing Chicago.
- Archpundit - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:12 am:
—–Legislation does not solve all of societies problems.
Does it solve some of them?
- JS Mill - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:18 am:
=Legislation does not solve all of societies problems.=
Neither does a snow cone giveaway but the post focuses on a program that empirically proves a reduction in violence.
- RNUG - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:22 am:
If you stop and think about it, the calls for police on every corner or the Illinois National Guard are just a different form of interruption.
This just may be cheaper and less risky.
- wordslinger - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:22 am:
–Legislation does not solve all of societies problems.–
You didn’t read the post. It talks about a program that was working here and has been demonstrated to work elsewhere.
You’re one of those “waits to talk” rather than “listens” kind of guys, I take it.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:29 am:
===Legislation does not solve all of societies problems===
I never said it did. In fact, if you read what I wrote above (you appear to have at least some reading abilities) you’ll see I said exactly the opposite. But if you want to insist on debating your silly stuff, then go somewhere else.
- Rod - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 12:09 pm:
Well interruption does work to some degree. But really the interupters have to be deeply imbedded in gang relationships, drug crew relationships, and what the police now call life style crews who can also be violent some times. But there is an inherent contradiction with these interupters, if they turn over on members of the community to the police about felons illegally having guns then they lose credibility to stop conflicts.
Really it’s not fully compatible with community policing and trying to get cooperation and tips about perpetrators in communities. There are no simple solutions to all of this.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 12:13 pm:
===have to be deeply imbedded in gang relationships, drug crew relationships===
Not true. At all.
- DaleyMail - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 12:43 pm:
No fan of the governor or the mayor, but was Ceasefire defunded because of the legal problems that Hardiman had? It was a good program that helped. Maybe they can find someone to bring it back.
Something needs to happen along with investment in communities that creates actual jobs that produce a living wage. We’ve let generations of communities be set up to fail.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 12:47 pm:
=== Maybe they can find someone to bring it back===
My pet peeve is people who pontificate about a post without reading it.
- Demoralized - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 1:29 pm:
In a time of limited resources you would think we would be all over funding programs like this, where there are clear metrics that show a good return on the investment of the funds.
- Keyrock - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 1:44 pm:
I haven’t seen a statistical analysis, but many mental health professionals with whom I’ve talked think the cuts in community mental health funding by Rahm (and in other social service agencies by Rauner) have also played a role in the increase in violence.
- DaleyMail - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 2:06 pm:
You got me.
- Mama - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 4:50 pm:
Wish they would fund “Cure Violence” in Chicago, Springfield and all other cities that need it too. It is worth a try. After all, what we are doing now is not working.
- striketoo - Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 6:42 pm:
I know that I am a broken record on the issue, but there is one simple piece of legislation that would significantly reduce gun deaths in the state. We need to raise the penalty for carrying an illegal gun from a misdemeanor to a felony. Those caught with an illegal gun in Chicago are back on the streets in hours.
- Jeff - Tuesday, Aug 14, 18 @ 12:49 am:
3this is too important for such sloppy analysis, not even noticing that the Rahm cut funding too anecdote completely undercuts the “statistics” SLufkin put forward. There has been no longterm linkage between Ceasefire and reductions in the murder rate. The rate plummeted exactly when Phil Cline introduced aggressive policing, first in harrison district and two months later citywide.
And then skyrocketed exactly when those tactics were abandoned.
- Da Big Bad Wolf - Tuesday, Aug 14, 18 @ 1:54 pm:
What are you talking about, Jeff? Phil Clines video cameras are still working.
- Left Hand - Tuesday, Aug 14, 18 @ 3:41 pm:
It was no secret that Garry McCarthy did not like Cease Fire. He was a big reason why CeaseFire was defunded. The numbers don’t lie though. There is a reason that the program has been implemented all over the world, including some of the most violent places like San Pedro Sula, Honduras and Syria.