It’s beyond time for Rockford to invest in violence prevention

We’re facing a deadly crisis here in Rockford.

In just the past two weeks, four people in our community have lost their lives to gun violence.

This is only a glimpse into a troubling pattern of violence in our city.

While Governor Pritzker’s announcement this month granting an additional $113 million for community-led violence prevention groups in Illinois is a welcome and sorely-needed statewide step, I am appalled that in the City of Rockford, we’ve heard next to nothing from our local officials.

Behind these statistics are human lives.

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Gun violence continues to be the leading cause of death for young Black men and boys in this country. The city of Rockford is no exception.

Since September 2020, my organization LIVE FREE Rockford has advocated relentlessly for the city to create an Office of Gun Violence Prevention, grounded in a community-led violence prevention approach, and invest $3 million in it over the first three years.

Across the country, community-led violence prevention strategies, which include investing in violence intervention outreach, hospital-based intervention programs, and therapeutic programs that support those most traumatized by gun violence, have produced significant reductions in gun violence.

If sufficiently funded and driven by these evidence-based approaches that reduced gun violence in large cities like New York City and Oakland, such an office would save countless lives.

Unfortunately, the city has failed to make any significant investment or even commitment to save lives using these proven strategies. And that’s not for lack of opportunity.

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The City of Rockford received $54.14 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan, and Winnebago County received $54.8 million.

Black and Brown advocates across the country, including here in Rockford, urged our state and local officials to allocate just a portion of this money to combat the gun violence epidemic.

Instead of following the lead of cities like St. Louis, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., our leaders have chosen to ignore evidence-based solutions that would keep our community safe.

The city tries to justify this by claiming these solutions are already taken care of by the office on domestic and community violence prevention.

Both issues are incredibly important, and at times intertwined, disproportionately harming poor communities. But ultimately, gun violence and domestic violence are separate issues that should be addressed with individualized strategies.

Lumping these two crises together only weakens the city’s potential response to both.

In response to the latest spate of violence, Mayor McNamara did acknowledge that violence in the city is a systemic problem that requires a systemic solution.

We agree, which is why we continue to advocate for solutions that combat violence at the root, rather than rely on police response as a Band-Aid that, at the end of the day, only causes further harm.

Unfortunately, we have not seen the mayor back his words up with tangible action.

As LIVE FREE Rockford’s regional organizer and my sister in this fight, Minister Wanda Fricks, who lost her own son to gun violence, shared with me: “Wherever there is poverty, disinvestment, and systemic racism, there is violence associated with it. When this goes unaddressed without significant investments from our elected officials, the problem continues to increase. Addressing gun violence seems to be a good talking point, but there has been no financial follow through to combat the problem.”

So what do community-led intervention strategies actually look like? It means making medical services available to people experiencing mental health crises. It means ensuring our community members, especially those most likely to get trapped in the violent cycle of incarceration and poverty, have access to programs and resources that invest in their economic security. It means rooting out systems of racism in the criminal legal system and building trust within communities who have, for centuries, been subject to unjust policing and state violence.

The solutions are right in front of our city officials. It’s just up to them to make an investment. How many more deaths will they tolerate until they decide to listen?

Willette Benford is a native of Rockford and the lead decarceration organizer for LIVE FREE Illinois.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: It’s beyond time for Rockford to invest in violence prevention