The Mayor’s summer violence program is unique is that is does address violence a little differently than past mayors but it is not unique in how it is not part of a long-term solution for communities.
What differentiates Mayor Lightfoot’s summer violence plan is that is seems to be data driven to laser focus on 15 Chicago Police Department beats with the most violence. This is truly unique as previous mayors have always taken more generalized approaches. So koudos to Mayor Lightfoot for using data to help her create the violence plan. The big problem is her plan like all the others does nothing to address the fundamental conditions in the neighborhoods that are the root causes of the violence.
The fact that there is a summer violence plan and not a plan to pour in massive economic resources and social services in to these communities over the long term shows that the focus from city hall is in reducing numbers in the short term with absolutely no plan on changing these communities for the long term. While I do believe that Mayor Lightfoot genuinely wants to reduce violence in these communities and does care about the lives in these communities she just doesn’t care enough to do what needs to be done over the long-term in these communities. This is why we have a summer violence plan. It is not that it is a bad one it is just that the summer violence plan exists at all. We will certainly be back here in summer 2022. If the summer violence plan is successful we might have 15 new beats to be laser focuses on but is that really progress?
Also on the show today we discuss the following topics:
- New CPD foot pursuit policy
- Alvarez shooting review
- Officer Evan Solano pulling gun in off duty incident
- Community safety team bad raid
- Cook County government try #2 at defund resolution
Images from today’s show
Video clips from today’s show
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