Black Voices

Johnson’s Anti-Violence Effort ‘Just Getting Started,’ 1 Year After It Began, Officials Say


Mayor Brandon Johnson’s push to focus his administration’s anti-violence efforts on 10 of Chicago’s “most vulnerable” areas on the city’s West and South sides is “just getting started,” according to an evaluation of the plan released Wednesday by city officials.

All four of the neighborhoods — Englewood, West Garfield Park, Austin and Little Village — have suffered from decades of disinvestment and neglect. That has fueled a cycle of violence that has made them some of the most violent places in Chicago that resist easy solutions, Deputy Mayor Garien Gatewood told “Chicago Tonight: Black Voices” on Wednesday.

While homicides dropped 7.6% citywide between 2023 and 2024, homicides dropped 30% in the Englewood (7th) Police District and 35% in the Harrison (11th) Police District, which included areas targeted by the mayor’s public safety plan, according to city data.

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“Not only are we seeing a reduction of crime citywide but having a more focused approach in our investments, we’re seeing some of the results that we were hoping for,” Gatewood said. “Obviously, we know this is not something that happens overnight.”

A 33-page evaluation of the first year of the push dubbed the People’s Plan for Community Safety promises to continue working to reduce crime and violence by “addressing the root causes of harm and investing in communities and people.”

Read the full report.

While noting the investment of “millions of dollars,” the report lauds officials for using data to identify the most at-risk blocks in Chicago while working “with dozens of departments, agencies, foundations, community leaders, and others through cross-sector working teams to develop new initiatives.”

“We are just getting started,” Johnson wrote in a letter introducing the report, acknowledging the difficulty in reversing what he called “the tide of historic and purposeful disinvestment.”

The push focused on 10 blocks in four Chicago neighborhoods:

  • between 59th and 63rd streets and along Garfield Boulevard in Englewood
  • along Madison, Adams and Jackson streets near the Eisenhower Expressway in West Garfield Park
  • along Madison, Adams and West End streets in Austin
  • and along 26th and 27th streets near Pulaski Road in Little Village.

Those areas were selected because shootings were far more likely to occur as compared with the citywide average, Gatewood said when announcing the plan in March.

But the report released Wednesday does not include specific data on homicides or shootings in 2024 in the targeted areas, making it impossible to judge the effectiveness of what Johnson calls “the full force of government” approach to fighting crime.

The plan also calls for city officials to redouble efforts to help those returning to Chicago from jail and prison find housing and employment.

Chicago’s expanded Office of Re-Entry, which is part of the mayor’s office, has been led since September by Joseph “JoJo” Mapp, records show.

Mapp pledged to step up efforts to ensure the city and its sister agencies were prepared to help Chicagoans returning from jail or prison.

Mapp served more than 26 years in prison after being convicted of murder and armed robbery as a teen before being released in 2020.

“I wish I had emotional support how to come back to a city that looks strange and different,” Mapp said. “I wish I had family reunification to tell me how my family has changed, as well as the traditional, I wish I had help finding and locating an apartment that didn’t exclude me because of my background.”

Among the accomplishments listed in the report are the cleaning and maintenance of approximately 250 vacant lots; responding to more than 5,000 requests for service to the city’s 311 nonemergency help line; and 25 “safe space activations” in the 10-block area.

Other accomplishments were harder for the report’s authors to quantify, including work to craft “an expansive re-engagement program” that will be run by a yet-to-be-selected community organization to reach young people who are unemployed and out of school.

A job fair hosted by the City Colleges of Chicago and Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership drew 800 people, and resulted in 140 offers of employment. The report does not include any data about how many people actually started work or remain in those positions.

The effort was also thwarted by forces outside its control. The city’s budget deficit prompted City Council members to slash $31 million that had been earmarked to restart the effort that sent $500 per month to Chicagoans living below the federal poverty line as part of a basic income program.

The report also lists as successes efforts not directly related to the People’s Plan for Public Safety as initially detailed by Johnson and Gatewood, including the start of a new study on whether Chicago Police Department officers are efficiently and effectively deployed across the city to stop crime and respond to calls for help.

That long overdue study is required by the federal court order known as the consent decree, which is designed to compel CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers.

The consent decree also requires the city to craft a system designed to allow officers to work with residents to address threats to public safety. The report on the first year of the People’s Plan for Public Safety credits the plan for that ongoing work, even though it has yet to result in any actual change in CPD operations and is required by a federal court order.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]


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