Chicago's safer neighborhoods

= Chicago's safer neighborh= oods

Pu= blished May 8, 2005

Editorial, Chicago Tribune

In a city of almost 3 million citizens, the presence of a few hundred extra yo= ung people doesn't change everyday life for most of us. But if the downward tre= nd of homicides in Chicago continues, the hundreds of would-be murder victims who have been spared an early death eventually will become thousands.

This city has learned how to lower its long stratospheric murder rate. Four-plus months into 2005, the murder toll here stands at 125, down 8perce= nt from the same point in 2004. If this year's lower rate holds constant, the = city will end 2005 with about 400 killings.

This looks to be the fourth consecutive year in which the number of homicid= es here has dropped. For comparison, 2002 was the 36th straight year Chicago had more = than 600 killings.

What's most remarkable is that while the number of homicides nationwide has been increasing, in Chicago it has dramatically declined. That decline is now reliable, not a fleeting anomaly. It is intensifying. Nobody knows the names of those who, had the homicide rate not fallen, would be dead. After all, those who don't= die by gunfire also don't sport buttons that say, "I got a reprieve from a bullet."

But in the aggregate we know that most of them are young African-Americans = and Latinos--members of the two communities that typically account for nine of every 10 homicides here. Homicide isn't an equal-opportunity scourge: It lu= rks in minority neighborhoods where drug peddlers and gang= bangers are the economic catalysts. A second powerful measure of violence also is plummeting citywide. After falling 23 percent in 2003 and another 39 percen= t in 2004, the pace of intentional shootings here is down 12 percent this year.<= br>
The reasons? Police strategies such as flooding officers into neighborhoods after gunplay--and mounting video cameras in ma= ny of those areas--can't prevent all street violence. But the new and aggressi= ve tactics have disrupted cycles of retaliation after a first incident occurs.= That alone is making streets safer. A new report from law school researchers at = the University of Chicag= o and Columbia University also documents the succ= ess of a federal-local initiative called Project Safe Neighborhoods. It's a sticks-and-carrots effort to keep parolees and probationers from committing= gun crimes.

One facet of the initiative involves parolee forums, neighborhood gatherings where ex-cons learn about the harsh federal prison sentences available for repeat offenders who use firearms. Then they're offered opportunities for employment training, education, job placement and drug treatment.

With an ocean of data, the researchers make a compelling case that parolees= who have endured the initiative's "treatment" have far lower odds of committing new gun crimes or other serious infractions. In two West Side police districts (Austin and Harrison), attending a parolee forum decreases gun offenders' o= dds of committing a new crime by 86 percent, compared with gun offenders who haven= 't attended a forum.

Homicide tolls in those districts have fallen sharply since the initiative arrived three years ago--and continue to edge lower this year.

The story is similar in two South Side districts (Deer= ing and Englewood) where the initiative also operates. The researchers conclude that, "As= the percentage of parolees who have attended forums increases, the monthly numb= er of homicides decreases."

David Hoffman, the federal prosecutor who co-heads the initiative here, stresses that several factors--policing strategies, Project Safe Neighborho= ods and community efforts such as CeaseFire--are wo= rking in concert. As a result, he says, "Some percentage= of criminals evidently are swearing off gun crimes."

Chicago= is making extraordinary progress against murder. If cops remain committed, if = the initiative spreads to more districts, and if this city continues to pour pu= blic and private resources into quelling the violence, those hundreds of would-be victims really will become thousands.