MacArthur Foundation Supports Chicago Project for Violence Prevention With $1.2 Million Grant

It may not seem logical to approach solving violence the same way you would cure a flu or tuberculosis outbreak. But the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, at UIC's School of Public Health, has proven that a public health solution to curb shootings in some of Chicago's at-risk neighborhoods is extremely effective.

"There is an infectious nature to violence and the strategy of our project is to find interrupters to that transmission," said Gary Slutkin, MD, executive director of the Chicago Project. In the first two years of the program's presence on neighborhood streets, residents see a 40 to 50 percent drop in shootings.

When shootings happen, neighborhood development suffers, and children struggle to concentrate on building their futures. Realizing safety is a prerequisite for community and personal development, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has provided a $1.2 million grant over four years to the Chicago Project.

The Chicago Project works with partners to reduce violence in Chicago and Illinois with ripple effects throughout the country. CeaseFire, a Project initiative, assists community organizations in developing and implementing strategies to reduce and prevent violence, particularly shootings and killings. Outreach workers, clergy and community leaders intervene in conflicts, promote alternatives to violence and change behaviors.

CeaseFire provides strategies to reduce violence under an outreach model that has the local community drive change. A community coalition drafts a violence prevention plan and oversees program implementation. The community hires a full-time manager to run the neighborhood program.

"It's incredible what we've been able to do, the lives we've seen transformed and the excitement and sense of safety residents have when they see outreach workers in their communities," said Maggie Pagan, CeaseFire's coordinator in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. "We went into a 10-block-square police beat in 2003 that had seen 10 homicides that year. After a full-force effort of outreach, there hasn't been a single homicide in that beat since. Information spreads just like violence, it is an epidemic and CeaseFire has the vaccine."

"Throughout history, the response to violence has been to retaliate," Slutkin said. "Those who learned to be violent now have a reverse perception, believing it's something they would never do."

"Individual investments have been and can be extremely crucial in giving the entire program, or even individual neighborhoods, more hope in reducing violence," Slutkin said. "Because of the support of Governor Blagojevich and the General Assembly, CeaseFire has now expanded to 25 communities, building on the work the MacArthur Foundation has helped organize."