Violence prevention activist calls for unit to fight crime in Chicago

(Center Square) – Chicago activist Tio Hardiman is preaching unity in the fight to beat the city’s rising crime rate after new data reveals violent crime spikes even as October hit its second-highest level in five years.

Of the 29,260 violent crimes reported in the last 12 months, Chicago Police Department statistics show that aggravated assault cases increased the most at 6.4 percent, with black residents the most attacked.

“We need to work together in an orchestrated way so that we can reach out to everybody as a safety net to catch all these young people before they cross the line,” Hardiman told The Center Square. “My message is about working together, being united, so we can reach more of these high-risk individuals.”

As the longtime executive director of Violence Interrupters, Hardiman argued there’s a reason at least some of the numbers are trending the way they are.

“I really think the police have backed off,” he said. “Based on all the criminal justice reform policies that are here now, there is no real orchestrated effort to help keep people safe, especially in the African-American community. I know that good policing can work, but at the same time, in the black community, policing has failed. It’s like at night, you don’t see the police anywhere unless there’s a car accident.”

And then there’s the policy that Hardiman insists has been just as damaging to the cause of violence prevention.

“A lot of funding for violence prevention has become political,” he said. “If you’re not on the right political side, you may not get funding to help reduce gun violence in Chicago or to help reduce overall violence. We need to take politics out of policing. We need to take politics out of violence prevention services. That’s where we fail. We have to stop these guys before they cross the line.”

The data shows that black people in the city are 5.4 times more likely to be victims of an aggravated assault than white residents, and that 80 percent of all such assaults in the past year occurred on the South and West Sides. west. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Austin district is home to the most attacks.

“Obviously, strategies don’t work when it comes to effective policing strategies that are implemented in the black community,” Hardiman said. “Many perpetrators of violence know that the odds of them being apprehended or convicted are about 70 percent in their favor.”

As the number of aggravated assault cases has increased, data shows that the arrest rate for such cases remains at about 1 in 6 cases.