Mayor Rahm Emanuel presented Chicago’s Youth Violence Prevention Plan at the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention in Washington D.C. today. The forum, hosted by the U.S. Department of Justice and Education, was attended by representatives from the White House, Federal agencies, and Local governments to examine youth violence prevention and report on their efforts in connection with the Obama Administration’s National Forum on Youth Violence. 

“Chicago’s approach is set apart by our multidisciplinary method to ending youth violence,” said Mayor Emanuel. “With a foundation of strong government leadership, cross-sector engagement, and data-informed strategies and evaluation, we will drastically reduce youth violence across Chicago.”

Mayor Emanuel and First Deputy Chief of Staff Felicia Davis participated in an interactive dialogue on violence prevention, intervention, enforcement, and response highlighting Chicago’s efforts to prevent youth violence. 

“Together we have launched an unprecedented collaborative effort to reduce youth violence by partnering with a broad range of civic, faith, community, business and philanthropic leaders,” said Mayor Emanuel.

Chicago’s violence plan introduces a combination of prevention, intervention, response and re-entry initiatives with the goal of reducing violence in Chicago by 50 percent by 2020.  The plan focuses primarily on prevention as a long-term strategy by creating strong, self-sustaining and stable communities where violence is not perceived as either acceptable or necessary.

“When children grow up in families and communities that work together to reject violence; when their neighborhoods are stable and economically vibrant; and when gangs, guns, and drugs do not cast a shadow on their daily lives, they are unlikely to ever turn to violence,”  said Mayor Emanuel. 

With strong leadership, cross-sector commitment, and infrastructure for accountability, the City is confident that the initiatives presented in the plan will continue to grow and improve until the goal of ending youth violence through creating stable communities is achieved. 

In addition, Chicago has recently enacted a number of public safety initiatives aimed at reducing crime including: putting more officers back into districts working on the streets to keep communities safe; introduced CompStat, a data-driven approach to fighting crime; increased resources to reduce violence districts; and collaboration with federal law enforcement agencies to bring in additional resources to our communities.  

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