We need a new approach to truly make a dent in Chicago's violence

In Chicago, two things are certain: Weekends bring shootings, robberies and carjackings, prompting calls for more money for anti-violence efforts.

Another $100 million was recently pledged for such initiatives, on top of the millions already spent on a wide variety of violence reduction efforts in recent years, not including the cost of police.

What is not certain is why the violence persists despite the money. There are many reasons and ways to effectively spend more money in neighborhoods. But are we asking the right questions about how to effectively spend it? Why can’t we consistently move the needle on reducing neighborhood violence? Are we just living with an uneasy peace until the next weekend when the scale and scope of shootings again take our breath away?

There are reasons that we, as a city and as individual neighborhoods, keep ending up in this same place.

We — civic and government leaders, policymakers and other stakeholders — do not know what we don’t know, and the data-informed science that could help is rarely at the solution table. Well-meaning people keep committing well-intentioned dollars. As with many wicked problems in public policy, two roads diverge — to spend or not to spend on existing programs — and we keep taking the one most traveled, ignoring that it isn’t making enough of a difference.

Too invested in what we think we know?

Instead of relying on science to probe the unknown and uncertain, we go with what we think we know, even when much evidence suggests we need a different approach. When social problems become hot-button political issues, we use science as a political tool — selectively wrapping pieces of it around what we think needs to be done. Then, we become invested in that solution and the supporting narrative. Challenges are seen as a threat.

There is data (such as at the University of Chicago Crime Lab) about the people who commit shootings, who is getting shot, and where and when. We may even know why. But what's needed is information to point beyond the consequences to causes — the conditions most likely fuel the violence, which is what public policy can actually do something about.

For instance, statistics alone make it easy to correlate poverty with violence. But what do those stats tell us? That violence is about the depressed conditions in neighborhoods that have been allowed to perpetuate poverty as a way of life? Or that we don’t know enough about how poverty impacts individual behavior, making it difficult to differentiate effect from cause?

Also, can we use data to forecast the impact, in lower-income neighborhoods like Austin and Auburn Gresham, of replicating the fiscal investment made in other, more middle-class neighborhoods?

Critically, can we ensure that our research and findings consider the racism and other inequities that are hard-wired into certain neighborhoods?

Stopgap efforts won’t work

The lack of science means that, for violence reduction, we keep spending, not investing, and hoping that long-game outcomes can be achieved with short-game efforts. We make small grants for stopgap efforts. And the long game loses. When we ask community members what the long game is, they are often blinded by the reality that those getting shot are their neighbors, relatives and friends. So, the short game — like curbing next weekend's shootings — prevails.

Clearly, the short game needs money. It would be malpractice not to tackle the real, day-to-day threats. The constant violence harms neighborhoods already distressed from underinvestment in the resources needed to support healthy children, families and communities.

But we need to stop acting like the long game — an informed, sustainable solution — will come from those dollars and call it what it is: money to hold the space until science, the community, and government can be brought together to develop a long game. Money matters, but right now, we have people making noble and mostly ineffective attempts to turn short-term dollars into long-term impact.

We need more than more money. We need a bigger table and science to tell us what works. Then we need to do something different with what we discover. That will be real investment.

BJ Walker, an Austin resident for 30 years, has served in the administrations of governors in Georgia and Illinois and the mayor of the city of Chicago. She has over 40 years of experience in education, human services and child welfare.

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