Mayor Lori Lightfoot touts national recognition of Chicago’s violence prevention programs

CHICAGO (WLS) — Mayor Lori Lightfoot mentioned Tuesday that Chicago has been investing in methods to stop gun violence within the metropolis, and he or she mentioned it is enjoying a job in a downward development in crime that is now being acknowledged by a nationwide advocacy group.

It comes after 37 individuals had been shot in Chicago final weekend, together with a 6-year-old woman and 7-year-old boy.

Town’s violence drawback has grow to be political fodder throughout an election 12 months. In an try to alter the narrative, Mayor Lori Lightfoot mentioned her administration’s efforts to scale back violence are working.

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“We rank third amongst 50 U.S. cities for violence prevention applications, providers and insurance policies,” Lightfoot mentioned. “And this, to us, is a really large deal, we’re grateful for the popularity,”

The popularity comes from a nationwide group, the Neighborhood Motion Fund.

The mayor mentioned this system she began a 12 months in the past makes use of what she calls “a holistic method” utilizing a number of authorities businesses to give attention to 15 of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods. And, she mentioned it is beginning to repay.

“Take, for instance, the West Facet,” Lightfoot mentioned. “We have now seen vital — 20-30% — declines in shootings and homicides on the West Facet Space 4, which traditionally has been essentially the most violent space in our metropolis.”

And the mayor says homicides and shootings are down by 18% within the metropolis, in comparison with final 12 months. However one in all her greatest critics in Metropolis Corridor would not purchase it.

“There’s not an individual within the metropolis but that believes that narrative,” ninth Ward Ald. Anthony Beale mentioned.

Beale mentioned crime is up in his far South Facet ward after police sources had been diverted to different components of the town.

“You aren’t going to alter individuals’s notion going into an election, pondering issues are OK within the metropolis,” Beale mentioned. “They aren’t, after we are nonetheless in need of 2,000 police within the metropolis of Chicago.”

The mayor insists the town’s conventional method of throwing extra police sources is just a short-term repair.

Lightfoot is satisfied her holistic and hyper-local method to violence will proceed to repay in the long term. The query is: will or not it’s in time for subsequent 12 months’s mayoral election?