Leading Chicago outreach organization finds support for diverting portion of police budget to social services in survey of focus groups
Chicago needs to “reimagine” public safety and shift money from the Chicago Police Department’s budget to more social services to reduce gun violence and make the city safer, according to a report issued Monday by the Chicago CRED organization.
The 17-page report summarized discussions with about 200 people in Zoom-based focus groups, primarily on the South and West sides, where Chicago’s violence is most concentrated. Participants included street outreach workers who mediate gang conflicts and provide other community services, ex-offenders, public officials, community leaders and regular residents, according to Marcus Yancey, a consultant for Chicago CRED.
Ever since the Memorial Day death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota sparked outrage throughout the U.S., activists who are critical of law enforcement have been more vocal in calling for “defunding of police,” the idea that policing money should be rerouted to social programs. The Chicago CRED report called for some police funds to be diverted to social services, while also making clear that the police are still necessary.
But if there’s any question as to whether the police are needed “to the degree that we have them now,” the groups believe part of their budget could be better suited to help fight violence by being reallocated to help disadvantaged people in the areas of mental health support, housing options, substance abuse aid and other social services.
“I think a lot of people are tired of being reactionary,” said Yancey. "We have this whole situation that happened and now we’d have a reaction whether that’s going to be through mechanisms like incarceration, arrests. ... What can we do on the front end to really prevent from even getting to that point?
“And we believe that some of these services that have the potential to scale and be able to be provided to a larger (portion) of the community would definitely be able to help assist,” he said.
CPD is more than a year into a federally mandated consent decree aimed at improving its policing practices in the areas of training, officer supervision and other disciplines. While there’s been a deeply rooted distrust of police in South and West side neighborhoods, exacerbated by high-profile incidents of police brutality and abuse, the focus groups “did not have a deep disdain for police officers,” according to the report.
But it also said many participants felt police officers were “inefficient and overly aggressive” at doing their jobs. The groups attribute this to lack of training, emotional and mental stress and officers not being from the neighborhoods they patrol.
“Many community members felt the officers are there for harsh enforcement rather than positive policing and protecting the community,” the report stated.
Chicago CRED (Creating Real Economic Destiny), is a nonprofit where Arne Duncan, former U.S. education secretary and Chicago Public Schools chief, is managing partner.
The release of the report comes the same week the Chicago City Council will be holding hearings for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2021 budget, which is expected to reflect a $1.2 billion deficit. The report was also made public at a time when Lightfoot has promoted street outreach work as a holistic approach to stopping violence, and as an alternative to being too dependent on Chicago police.
Her administration has touted $11.5 million in spending this year on conflict intervention, counseling and employment for people most at risk, as well as services for victims and funding for the city’s public safety office. But the city’s spending for these alternate approaches to violence is less than 1% of the city’s share of the Police Department budget this year, which is about $1.7 billion.
———
©2020 the Chicago Tribune
Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
