Safer Neighborhoods Through Policing and Prevention
Cities only work when people feel safe. When violence makes people retreat indoors and avoid public spaces, it isn't just a crime problem, it's the fabric of community life breaking down. Businesses don't open. Jobs don't follow. The investment this ward needs goes somewhere else. Safety is the precondition for everything else.
This isn't abstract for me. Since my wife and I bought our home on the 2300 block of Warren in 2020, we have experienced this firsthand. Stray bullets have shattered our car windshield. Drug dealers return to the corner in the warm months. Bodies have lain in the street outside the corner Shell station, more times than I can count. None of this should be normal and for too many families in this ward, it is.
So what does it take to make a neighborhood safer? The answer starts with understanding what's actually driving the violence and it's more hopeful than the headlines suggest. For decades, the conversation about this type of violence has been about gangs, drugs, and turf and for parts of the city, that's still real. But new research out of the University of Chicago shows something else is also true: a huge share of shootings don't start as planned crimes. They start as arguments - at a party, on social media, between people who know each other - that spiral out of control in seconds, especially when a gun is nearby.
That's not a reason for despair, it's a reason to act differently than we have. If a significant share of shootings grow out of arguments rather than calculated violence, then investing in the skills to de-escalate those moments is key. It doesn't replace everything else we need - better economic opportunity, safer physical environments, a police department that has earned community trust - but it addresses something real that we have largely ignored. And we have programs, tested right here in Chicago, that prove it works. Here's what I'll fight for:
- Bring proven programs to every school in this ward.Programs that teach young people conflict-resolution and emotional regulation skills like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) have been shown in rigorous studies to cut violent arrests by close to 40%.[1] While these programs exist in Chicago they are not available everywhere. I'll not only fight for these programs to be earmarked in next year's budget, but I will also partner with our elected school board representative to teach CBT in every classroom in our ward.
- Turn vacant and blighted lots into pocket parks and community gardens.A landmark study found that cleaning up and greening vacant lots reduced gun violence in surrounding blocks[2], not by adding more police, but by giving neighbors a reason to be outside, watching out for each other, and reclaiming their public spaces. In parts of this ward that have also gone years without a functioning grocery store, community gardens can do double duty: a safer block and a source of fresh food on the same plot of land. I'll use city land programs to make this happen, block by block, starting with an inventory of every vacant and blighted lot in the 27th Ward.
- Push for data-driven police deployment in this ward.Residents of this ward have been told for years to call 911 and trust the process. Many have stopped calling not because things got better, but because nothing has changed. That pattern isn't the fault of individual officers. It's the result of a system that deploys police based on the wrong data. Chicago's current model for allocating patrol officers is based on calls for service, but research shows that high-violence West Side communities call police at far lower rates than lower-crime neighborhoods, meaning our ward is underserved by a formula that rewards trust, not need.[3] I'll advocate for the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to use actual crime data, not just call volume, to determine where officers are deployed, and fight for this ward to get the patrol presence our actual crime rates demand.
- Advocate for more detectives focused on solving violent crimes.Chicago police made arrests in just 27% of homicides between 2010 and 2024, and cleared only 6% of nonfatal shootings by arrest in 2024.[4] Every unsolved shooting on the West Side sends a message that violence has no consequences and leaves the person who pulled the trigger free to do it again. I'll advocate in the city budget for additional detective resources focused on violent crime in our ward, and publish ward-level data on response times, clearance rates, and crime trends so residents can see exactly what's happening and hold both this office and CPD accountable.
- Connect residents to mental health, trauma recovery, and substance-use services - before they give up looking.The West Side carries decades of accumulated trauma and the systems designed to help are fractured, hard to navigate, and largely invisible to the people who need them most. Too many residents who are ready to get help don't know where to start, get bounced between agencies, or give up before they find the right door. I'll build a dedicated referral and navigation function inside the ward office to connect residents directly to mental health services, trauma recovery programs, and substance-use treatment. You shouldn't need to be a social worker to find help in this ward. You should just need to call the alderman's office.