The challenge of reducing youth violence in Chicago will be the subject of a Friday, Feb. 10 forum featuring city officials and scholars from the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the Urban Education Lab.
Scholars will discuss new research on crime reduction with key city leaders, including the chiefs of the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Police Department, and other major figures in law enforcement and education. The event, titled “Reducing Urban Crime and Violence: What Works and What Is Promising,” will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 10.
Although the event is not open to the public, the entire program will be webcast live at the UChicago Live Facebook page and through the Urban Education Institute website. Webcast viewers can follow conversation about the forum on Twitter by using the hashtag #reducecrime.
Speakers at the event will focus especially on the importance of addressing the needs of students who are likely to become involved in crime. In Chicago, policymakers and researchers increasingly are collaborating on evidence-based approaches to violence prevention. The forum’s examination of data will include the example of New York City, which has dramatically reduced homicides since 1993 while also decreasing incarceration rates.
The first session, “Law Enforcement Strategies for Reducing Crime and Violence,” will include these speakers:
- Hon. Paul Biebel, Presiding Judge of the Criminal Division Circuit Court of Cook County
- Patrick Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
- Jens Ludwig, McCormick Foundation Professor of Social Service Administration, Law and Public Policy at the University of Chicago; director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab and co-director of the Urban Education Lab.
- Garry McCarthy, superintendent of the Chicago Police Department
- Frank Zimring, professor of law and chair of the Criminal Justice Research Program at the University of California, Berkeley, who will present findings from his book, The City That Became Safe, which details how New York was able to dramatically reduce homicides.
The second session, “Education and Social Service Strategies for Reducing Crime and Violence,” will feature these speakers:
- Robin Jacob, assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan School of Education and Urban Education Lab affiliate, will present research on improving educational outcomes.
- Timothy Knowles, director of the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute
- Jean-Claude Brizard, CEO of Chicago Public Schools
- Evelyn Diaz, Chicago’s commissioner of the Department of Family and Support Services
- Susana Vasquez, executive director of Local Initiatives Support Corporation in Chicago
The University of Chicago Crime Lab, created in 2009, seeks to improve understanding of how to reduce crime and violence, in cooperation with government agencies and non-profit organizations. The Crime Lab helps generate and evaluate new evidence about the benefits and costs of violence intervention strategies. The Urban Education Lab was created in 2011 as part of the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute, with the goal of generating knowledge to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged children growing up in some of the most distressed urban neighborhoods in America and overseas.
In addition to the Crime Lab and the Urban Education Lab, other organizers of the forum are the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Center for Youth Violence Prevention at the University of Chicago. The event is presented in collaboration with the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, the Civic Consulting Alliance, the Joyce Foundation and Perkins Cole LLP, which will host the event.
—Prof. Chuan He
