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Violence spike blamed on budget cuts

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Illinois

* The governor proposed cutting CeaseFire’s $4.7 million state funding by $3 million in February, and hasn’t released any new money for quite a while. Mayor Emanuel also cut $1 million from the program. The AP says the city’s crime spike could be related…

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner froze money for CeaseFire, featured in the 2011 documentary “The Interrupters,” as Illinois began running out of money because Democrats passed a budget that spent billions more than the state took in. The program was cut off before receiving all of the $4.7 million it was budgeted last fiscal year, and it has gotten no state funding this year as the fight between Rauner and Democrats who lead the Legislature drags on and several programs in Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois shut down.

Meanwhile, Chicago has seen a roughly 20 percent increase in shootings and homicides so far this year compared with the same period in 2014. That included a July 4 weekend that left 48 people shot, including a 7-year-old boy who police say was killed by a shot intended for his father, described as a “ranking gang member” by officers.

None of those holiday weekend shootings occurred in two police districts covered by a Ceasefire-affiliated program that managed to fund itself for the month of July. The same area saw nearly 50 shootings in August. […]

Target Area’s grant was $220,000. Combined with another eliminated grant that helped ex-offenders leaving prison, the state dollars made up 21 percent of the agency’s annual budget, Phillips said.

In July, Target Area used an anonymous donation to train several hundred people on how to prevent conflicts from escalating into violence. The neighborhood into which they were sent during the July 4 weekend saw none of the dozens of shootings and killings that plagued the city over those days, Phillips said.

The following month, when funding was gone and programs had ended, there were 46 shootings in the same area.

The theory behind the program seems pretty sound, at least.

* From a recent WaPo interview of epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health…

“What has been meant by this in the past is that you can approach violence with epidemiological methods, which essentially means that you can apply science to it, figure out where it is, and predict it.

“But we’ve gotten much more sophisticated since then, and now we have very specific health methods for reducing it. We understand that the people doing violence have picked up a set of behavioral patterns by the way the brain copies things. And also that people follow their peers, and there are strong brain processes that encourage you to do that.

“If you go beyond thinking about violence as a moral problem and instead try to understand it as a health issue, many things that were previously unexplainable can be explained. People are always saying “senseless acts of violence,” but that’s really because we haven’t made sense of it. […]

“I’ll give you an example. I worked in refugee camps in Somalia. We had six doctors, and there were a million refugees in 40 camps. There was serious malnutrition, an unimaginable rate of death from diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria. So it seemed like this was an unmanageable problem. But what we did is we recruited tens of thousands of health workers, who were taught just a few simple things that needed to be done.

“These are paid jobs, but they’re paid at a scale that’s different than the people who have gone to ten years of school. Because what’s required to help a mom manage diarrhea, or talk to a sex worker about safe sex, or talk to someone who is suffering a lot, it’s often not that complicated. We’re either giving people nothing or super-everything, and it makes absolutely no sense.”

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 2:49 pm

Comments

i certainly think intervention needs to occur but i have no confidence in ceasefire and don’t believe the cut in their funding is related to the crime spike. we need intervention from the aldermen in their respective communities as well as the reverends in each of these communities. and, the “no snitch” policy isn’t helping matters either.

Comment by Zoe Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:05 pm
Not enough time or data yet for cause and effect, I think.

Comment by Wordslinger Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:17 pm
Its not just CeaseFire, but also Youth Reach and substance abuse treatment.

There’s no question that ultimately the Govenor will wear the jacket for the increase in violence, and rightly so.

Comment by Juvenal Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:18 pm
zoe - i’m curious about why you don’t have any confidence in ceasefire? can you talk more on that. this isn’t an attack, i only know a little about ceasefire and would like to know what people see as the problems.

Comment by anon Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:19 pm
CSM also picked up the story: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/1009/Why-Chicago-is-shuttering-anti-violence-programs-amid-spike-in-shootings

Comment by sal-says Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:21 pm
The sad part to me, aside from policy/budget debates on state and national levels regarding gun violence, is that people and kids are dying in Chicago from guns nearly every weekend. We hear little about it in Springfield. No national news, it is just poor people dying.

Comment by 360 Degree TurnAround Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:22 pm
A lot of money has been spent on program, (substance abuse, welfare programs, day care, more cops etc. etc.) in the name of helping to control violence and yet violence increases.

Blaming the lack of money when a huge amount is already spent is very disingenuous but if that is all some can come up with they will use it over and over and over again.

Comment by Federalist Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:24 pm
== Not enough time or data yet for cause and effect, I think. ==

Maybe, but it ’seems’ violence is worse.

Ain’t a huge amt of $, put it back & see if violence goes down. There’s another article about treating it as a health issue. Too many folks are having lives changed by this.

Comment by sal-says Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:26 pm
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…the punishment for illegal gun use is not severe enough. Ten years in federal prison, even for first offense. There’s an empty federal prison in Thomson, Illinois. Fill it.

Comment by Gone, but not forgotten Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:30 pm
This is lazy thinking.
What about the homicide spike in other years like 2008 or 2012? What caused those?

Those problems are way bigger and deeper than any little government program.

Comment by Pawnee Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:30 pm
Gone, but not forgotten - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:30 pm:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…the punishment for illegal gun use is not severe enough. Ten years in federal prison, even for first offense. There’s an empty federal prison in Thomson, Illinois. Fill it.

AGREED! Yet such legislation never ever rises let alone gets passed.

Also, all applications for gun purchases should be cleared by a central federal clearing house such as the FBI.

Comment by Federalist Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:40 pm
=== Those problems are way bigger and deeper than any little government program. ===

So therefore we sit back, light up a big cigar and do nothing about them. Right?

Comment by olddog Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:46 pm
Let’s just blame everything on the Governor.

Done. Everyone have an awesome holiday weekend.

Comment by Team Sleep Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:49 pm
zoe - i’m curious about why you don’t have any confidence in ceasefire? can you talk more on that. this isn’t an attack, i only know a little about ceasefire and would like to know what people see as the problems.
______________________________

because they don’t work with the police and until there is a true partnership with law enforcement, i don’t believe results will be seen. the idea is ceasefire ‘employees’ have street cred because most of their ‘interrupters’ have criminal backgrounds. but the ‘interrupters’ perpetuating the feeling that law enforcement and authority figures are to be discounted does more harm than good. they may happen to stop a potential skirmish now and then but, only for that moment. nothing lasting or long term.

Comment by Zoe Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 3:52 pm
There is a national crime spike right now so an increase over last year is to be expected. Ferguson effect?

Comment by Hoopy Lou Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 4:08 pm
Zoe is spot on.

Comment by Amalia Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 4:11 pm
Looks like CeaseFire has programs in Chicago, East St. Louis, Maywood, Rockford, Springfield, and Waukegan/N. Chicago, and they claim a 50% reduction in killings.

With the murder rate in those areas, seems like money well spent, if we are to believe what we are told.

Call me naïve, but I remain aghast, shaking my head, that there are areas of our state where big money has to be spent to convince and instruct people to be civil to your fellow man and not kill each other.

Comment by Gumby Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 4:13 pm
===you can approach violence with epidemiological methods, which essentially means that you can apply science to it===
===We hear little about it in Springfield. No national news===

The most recent national news is that the 1996 ban on use of epidemiological methods to study gun violence using federal money will continue. The House acted this summer to not fund the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its epidemiologists to do any research into gun violence. As House Speaker John Boehner put it, “I’m sorry, but a gun is not a disease”.

If gun violence is considered to be a public health issue in Illinois then maybe the GA needs to consider funding research at the state level.

For more see http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/gun-violence-research-cdc-boehner

Comment by Small Town Taxpayer Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 4:14 pm
No olddog. Just don’t blame a recurring spike in violence on the recent defunding of a questionable government program.

But do have a cigar anyway if you choose.

Comment by Pawnee Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 4:19 pm
Zoe - I see, that’s what you mean by the “no snitches” policy then.

The violence is happening in the South side of Chicago. If this level of violence was occuring on the North side, I’d bet Rahmn wouldn’t have cut funding.

Comment by anon Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 4:39 pm
anon @ 4:39:

There’s been an uptick in shootings in Uptown, Edgewater and Rogers Park. Two GD factions going after each other on social media spilling out onto the streets.

Also hearing more about armed robberies in Lake View area, but not sure if this is an actual increase or just a difference in reporting.

Comment by Anderson Villy Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 5:01 pm