Advocates, legislators push for $140 million to fund violence prevention
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 [May 07, 2024]
By Catrina Petersen | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – The Reimagine Public Safety Act calls for a
comprehensive approach to reducing violent crime through targeted
community investments. Advocates and violence prevention groups gathered
in Springfield recently to push for $140 million.
Target Area Development Director of Research and Re-entry Edward McBride
said the reduction of crime in Chicago can be attributed to the
Reimagine Public Safety Act and peacekeepers, who receive about $200 a
day in taxpayer dollars.
“But essentially this has a known factor to bring down crime in the city
and around the state, and we are looking at a 40% drop in the city of
Chicago in gun violence. There have been numerous programs that have
been implemented with this funding and we want to permanently fund it so
that it doesn’t go away,” said McBride.
Target Area Development is a non-profit organization that seeks to
prevent violence.
State Rep. Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, said the legislature dedicated
millions of dollars to violence prevention programs last spring.
“I know late last spring, earlier summer, there was an initiative for
several million dollars for some peacekeepers in Chicago and the numbers
I am seeing is that crime continues to increase,” said Halbrook.
According to Wirepoints, Chicago led the nation in homicides for the
12th year in a row in 2023 with murder rates are five times higher than
New York City’s.
Despite instances where so-called peacekeepers in Chicago have been
charged with beating and robbing people, advocates and state Rep. Justin
Slaughter, D-Chicago, pushed for more funding to be given to violence
prevention programs that work with the peacekeepers.
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A Chicago Police Department vehicle
Chicago Police Department via X
Peacekeepers can be ex-convicts like Oscar Montes who was on tape in his
yellow peacekeeper vest last year, with about six other men, and was
beating and robbing a victim they had pulled from a car stopped at a red
light in Chicago. Montes, prior to becoming a peacekeeper, served over
10 years for aggravated discharge of a firearm into an occupied vehicle.
Hundreds of violence prevention advocates in orange shirts and yellow
peacekeeper vest were at the Capitol last week. McBride said his
organization works with peacekeepers.
“The peacekeepers are the ones who are actually out there in the streets
and they can keep the peace amongst everyone in the hot spots,” said
McBride.
Last year, the Illinois Department of Human Services was looking to
spend $30 million of taxpayer money on the Peacekeeper initiative.
Halbrook said the spending isn’t helping.
“I’m not sure how these measures that we spend tens or hundreds of
millions of dollars on … I don’t see how they’re helping,” said Halbrook.
City of Chicago data for 2022 reveal that arrests were made for only 5%
of offenses in Chicago’s major crime categories. That compares to 10% in
2019. The arrest rate for homicides in 2022 were at 28%.
On the House floor last week, Slaughter said that violent prevention
organizations are making sure individuals in underserved communities get
the resources they need. He called to continue to uplift and support the
organizations that are bringing the vision to life with the Reimagine
Public Safety Act. He asked for $140 million.
“I do know showing up with a big crowd like this in Springfield shows
the legislators that this is affecting the community,” said McBride. “If
you put a face to what they’re passing, it’s more personable for them.” |
