By: Ashmar Mandou

The City of Chicago recently announced The Community Justice Action Fund’s inaugural City Violence Prevention Index (VPI) ranked Chicago among the top cities in the nation for providing a range of violence prevention programs, services, and policies.  “The gun violence we’ve seen in Chicago has been devastating, but Community Justice Action Fund’s report shows that we are making some of the necessary changes to improve safety in our city for everyone,” said Congresswoman Kelly. The VPI scorecard assessed and ranked 50 U.S. cities with the highest incidents of gun violence in 2021 based on 35 criteria spanning three categories:  

1. Intervention and Risk Factor Reduction 

2. Addressing the Root Causes of Violence 

3. Local Offices of Violence Prevention 

Chicago scored 75 out of 100, tying with Oakland, California. Washington, D.C., ranked first, and Richmond, Virginia, ranked second. The 10 highest-scoring cities averaged 60 out of 100 points — nearly 2.5 times the overall national average. Key findings from the report also show that 100 percrent of the top 10 ranked cities funded outreach-based violence intervention, while only 38 percent of cities rated had a citywide violence prevention plan that incorporated public health strategies. 

The recognition comes nearly a year after the City of Chicago implemented the first-ever Community Safety Coordination Center (CSCC), a multi-agency coordination center to drive violence reduction using many of the learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its inception, the CSCC has worked to engage residents, while coordinating resources, staff, and funding to prevent and reduce violence across Chicago.

“We work directly with community members across Chicago every day who face the realities of violence and its impact on their communities,” said Jorge Matos, Senior Director, READI Chicago. “We are proud to be partnering with community members and violence prevention leaders here in the city, as well as the City of Chicago and national leaders like Representative Kelly and Greg Jackson to think more critically about what works and how we can keep improving on our collective efforts to create a model that we hope not only can be impactful in Chicago, but also in communities across the country.”  Among the criteria, Chicago excelled in numerous areas, including Outreach-Based Violence Intervention Programs, Youth and Family Violence Prevention Programs, Strategic Workforce Development Programs, and Victim and Survivor Services.