Advocates call for Chicago Office of Gun Violence Reduction | ChicagoLIVE

All right, so Chicago's gun violence prevention advocates are actually calling for a permanent Department of Gun Violence Reduction. Live Free Illinois is pressing Mayor Brandon Johnson and city council members to centralize roughly but $150 million in violence prevention spending, improve accountability, and expand community-based services. We're going to talk with Reverend Sierra Bates-Chamberlain, who's going to join us to discuss the proposal, council support, and a little bit more about it. First of all, Reverend, thank you for taking the time. We appreciate you. Let's see. Hold on. One more time. Good to see you. See, this is where we're still working out the logistics. Your mic was down, but that's on me. Good to see you. Thank you for having me. Hey, good morning. Happy Saturday. So, you know, Reverend, I want to start out. Just why do you think Chicago needs a permanent Department of Gun Violence Reduction? Sure. There are a few reasons why. One, we know that when we're talking about a long term strategy to reduce gun violence, you need longevity continuity transparency investment in order for that to happen you need a centralized location to coordinate all of that and historically Chicago has not had a long-term violence reduction plan it typically would transition from mayor to from mayor to mayor anytime a new deputy mayor came in that would be a new strategy to address gun violence but when you have this department, not only are you consolidating resources and making sure that they're working more efficiently and programs are communicating with one another, but then you're also ensuring that there is a long-term plan in place. And this is why we've seen these offices being established from across the city and they've been a part of the reductions that we've seen across the country. Okay. I know that Chicago already spends $150 million on violence prevention. This is across multiple agencies. So, Reverend, would this one department then spend that $150 million, or would they be asking for more money? Right now, we are coming in as budget neutral. The goal is, I'll give a quick example. It's So almost if you have three people who have three different Netflix subscriptions and then you move into one house, you may have to bump up from the $12.99 package to the $26.99 package. But instead of paying three subscriptions, you're only paying one. And that is the idea behind consolidating all of the resources into one space. So we're not asking for the increase, but we want to make sure that the dollars that are being spent. are in one space and working together efficiently. How do you think that this is going to change how you guys operate as a whole? I can imagine that it would be easier, better communication. What other things do you hope that will change with this move? Sure. So one, also transparency. When we talk about the $150 million, we found out how much that was because there was the mayor's office did an audit to identify where some of those resources were. But just the fact that a lot of the aldermen don't know where the money is and how it's being spent. So just even the fact that there's more transparency. What this also calls for is the coordination, the continued coordinations of the internal government cabinet. So the deputy mayor, through his executive order, has already established an internal cabinet. This also establishes a community advisory board. It also makes sure that we are very transparent around and know as residents, well, where is the money and how is it being used and how is it being evaluated and how are people being accountable? So there are so many things that's baked into it. It also ensures that there is investment in multiple strategies. There's continued investment in CVI, continued investment in trauma-healing victims advocacy, witness protection. There are so many things that go into violence reduction, gender-based violence. So all of these things will be communicating and working together and also ensuring that there is investment into this comprehensive approach. Reverend, why do you think some aldermen just really haven't committed to the town hall or publicly stated their feelings, their position one way or another on the proposal? You know, recently, there are a couple of things. So, one, recently people have been naming since Mayor Johnson came on board. They're like, oh, this is a Mayor Johnson thing. And we're, as community members, are saying no. We've been advocating for this for multiple administrations. And we organized the mayor's office as well and other alders to be on board and to support. This was a community effort, a community led effort. But some people are using this moment to basically being politically motivated to use this moment against the mayor. And so we don't care about that. All we care about is ensuring that we're funding peace and putting good policy in place. The second piece is that when we're talking about violence reduction, there has to be a true value and investment in black and brown lives on the south and west sides of Chicago. And we know that more recently people have been more concerned once violence had began to spread across the city. But again, alders have to show their investment into the people and pay attention to the needs of the people. So some of it has simply been about the political will of investing in funding peace and the lack of it. Yeah. I'm so glad that you mentioned the transparency piece of this, because that was actually one of my questions and I'm going to be surprised. I'm kind of shocked to hear that previous to trying to cobble this department together, that there was a misstep in tracking these funds. And that was one of the concerns I had. I mean, fraud is like top of mind for a lot of people especially when it comes to local governments and the fact that we didn't know how this 150 million dollars was being spent what the groups that were receiving it were actually doing with it so i think that that needs certainly to be checked off the list you know much of the violence we see here is crime related reverend um how would this department work to address the crime aspect and support victims yeah it's it's all a part of it we believe in the comprehensive approach it's not just in programming. It's also in the long-term vision of understanding that there's intervention, but there's also prevention. There are ways that we have to look at policy. So a part of this office will be strategically looking at best practices and policies to reduce gun violence as well. So as we're talking about addressing the crime, And when we have a full investment in what we know, what we believe in community-based approaches to reduce gun violence, and we're doing that, we're already seeing the reductions. When communities are given the resources and the support to lead and they have the backing of their governments to lead, you see the reductions in community. Now, granted, a lot of communities on the south and west sides of Chicago are still feeling the impact of violence in our communities. However, we can't ignore the reductions that we see. And those reductions are coming from community members waking up every day, rolling up their sleeves, and fighting to stop violence in our neighborhoods. And I believe that if we continue to invest in support and sharpen and improve the programming, that we'll continue to see violence to where we don't have safer cities, we have a safe city. I love that. I'm reading your mission right now and all the different things that you guys do, including night walks or, as Natalie was mentioning, that wraparound victim service. Can you talk more about what you guys do as an organization that people may not be aware of? Sure. Live Free Illinois, we have a community healing resource center network where we partner with over 10 faith institutions from across the state. And they are able to educate community members around mental health resources. They also engage community members in stress and trauma activities and addressing stress and trauma, toxic stress. We are also strong advocates around not only gun violence, but addressing the criminal legal system. We do believe that you cannot simply address gun violence without addressing the criminal legal system as well. So we have a decarceration fellowship where we work with individuals who are recently released from incarceration and really supporting their reentry while they're also learning the practices and skill sets of organizing. We also have a lot of our work as we're speaking about violence is also building up the narrative on clearance rates and addressing the fact that clearance rates are oftentimes lower in communities of color. And not only lower, they also can be deceitful as how they're reported in community. So that's some of the work that we do under the umbrella of Live Free Illinois. You know, you've mentioned Mayor Brandon Johnson a couple of times, and obviously we're kind of on the cusp of a mayoral election. Do you think that the success of this proposal, of this idea, whether or not it really comes to fruition, do you think it depends on who ends up in the mayor's office, whether it remains Brandon Johnson or if it ends up someone else? Do you think who is mayor is going to determine the future of the gun violence prevention? This is why we're fighting to pass the ordinance. And once we pass the ordinance, it won't matter. When you have executive orders passed, like Mayor Johnson passed for the Office of Violence Prevention this summer, we know that those go away when there's a new administration. But by the city council making the investment and voting to make the Department of Gun Violence a reality, it won't matter who the mayor is because the people in the council will have chosen to have a long-term solution in place. So this is why it's so important to pass this ordinance. Thank you very much, Reverend. An important conversation, obviously an important topic, one that is front of mind for all of us here in and around the city. We know you have a lot going on. Thank you for taking the time this Saturday morning to talk about this with us. Thank you. Have a wonderful day.