I love my city, but we’ve got a whopper of a major problem. As the 3rd largest city in the US, Chicago had 650 murders in 2017, which is more than the combined total of NYC (290) and LA (286). Things improved in 2018 with a drop to below 600 murders, but no one here is celebrating that milestone. However, I learned a lot today at the Union League of Chicago luncheon talk by Arne Duncan, former Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools and US Secretary of Education during the Obama administration. After returning to Chicago, Duncan is a managing partner with Chicago Cred, a social enterprise that believes, “the best solution for ending gun violence is recruiting men most likely to be perpetrators or victims of shootings and transition them to jobs in the legal economy that pay as much or more than what they earn in the violence-plagued illegal economy.”
Expecting to hear a policy speech about education, I was blown away by Duncan’s next act. He came to the realization early in his career (when dozens of CPS students were killed by gun violence each year) you can’t teach a student who is dead. He is now deep in the trenches working one on one with the “villains” in our society (those at highest risk of being shooters or being shot) to offer “social, emotional and job readiness support to place our program participants in permanent, full-time jobs with private employers at a targeted starting wage of $12-$15/hour.” He arrived at the podium with his sleeves rolled up and spoke from his heart about the need for those of us in the “safe” neighborhoods of Chicago to step out of our comfort zones and to take ownership by creating opportunities and alternative pathways to the young men in our most troubled neighborhoods who have few options to provide a life for themselves and their families.
Duncan was hesitant to comment on his opinions about how “we” got into our current situation. He suggests some macro issues probably play a role, such as the incarceration of gang leadership and the relocation of public housing residents into our city’s neighborhoods. While both these efforts were needed, “cutting off the head” of the gang infrastructure and disrupting existing gang structures resulted in countless small cliques battling it out block by block. He also noted that while Chicago has among the most restrictive gun laws in the country, guns are easily purchased in neighboring states, primarily nearby Indiana. All the men his organization supports carry guns for protection.
Throughout his talk, Duncan called on all citizens of Chicago, as well as our crop of mayoral candidates, to face the problem head-on by:
- Setting measurable goals for violence reduction (his aim is under 400 homicides in 2019).
- Articulating a strategy to achieve that goal (his revolves around outreach to the 3,000 or so young men most likely to shoot or be shot).
- Reporting where we are succeeding and failing at achieving that goal.
Duncan is focused on going into our most troubled neighborhoods to listen to those directly impacted by gun violence and to offer an alternative path involving one-to-one support, job training, and job placement. He argues the cost of counseling and placement into living-wage jobs for the 3,000 young men he is targeting is far less than the cost of their incarceration. Whether or not his approach will achieve his lofty aims, he’s walking the talk … and challenging those of us in the “safe” neighborhoods to step out of our comfort zones to listen, attempt to understand the underlying issues, and lend support versus hiding in our safe places.