More than 65 Community Groups Call on the City of Chicago to Focus on Root Causes of Violence Instead of Punishment

Criminal Justice ,

Every year, Chicago experiences rising temperatures coinciding with heightened gun violence. To combat this issue, Mayor Lightfoot announced plans for increasing the number of police on the street and stricter curfews. Instead of helping with violence, this will only increase the number of people being put behind bars in Cook County. 

Mayor Lightfoot’s public responses to the rise of gun violence have continued to insist on more pretrial jailing, which has been shown to destabilize communities and exacerbate the violence we’re all working to address. Instead of acknowledging that this violence is a direct outcome of years of divestment rooted in systemic racism, the Mayor and Chicago Police Superintendent have chosen to routinely blame the violence on reforms to our criminal legal system.

We know that gun violence plaguing our city is rooted in economic disinvestment and instability. Our communities’ greatest resource is each other, and it is harmful when our policymakers insist that systematic problems will be solved by simply arresting our neighbors. 

More than 65 community, faith, legal and policy organizations from across Chicago have come together to sign an open letter calling for the Mayor to address violence by focusing on addressing root causes instead of punishment. Punitive and carceral policies have proven ineffective, and it’s time for the City of Chicago to shift priorities to policies that will actually keep us safe – like investments in community-based violence interruption programs, transformative justice, and youth engagement. 

As the letter states: “This year, we say no more. We cannot accept more of the same harmful narratives and policies from City Hall that sideline the root causes of violence and criminalize community members, all while failing to meaningfully invest in what truly keeps us safe.” 

This plea comes ahead of Memorial Day weekend, which often marks an unofficial kickoff about how the City of Chicago should address the summer rise in gun violence. Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts joins the call on Mayor Lightfoot “to rise to the occasion so that our city can rise as well.”

  • Read the community’s full letter to Mayor Lightfoot here.
  • Watch the press conference with Alderperson Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd Ward) and representatives from A Just Harvest, Chicago Community Bond Fund, Illinois Alliance for Reentry & Justice, and Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) speaking on behalf of the co-signers here.

Blog post written by Sierra Stinson, Intern with Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and rising senior at Notre Dame University studying Political Science and Liberal Studies.