Ceasefire Chicago
In this post, I commented on how I thought it was a dumb idea to mediate on the street to prevent gun crime. It might actually be a good idea since the group has had some success:
The two men used to patrol the neighbourhood, near the axis of Logan Square and Humboldt Park, for their respective gangs. Now, they do it as outreach workers for Ceasefire, a community-based attempt to stem the violence.
No easy task here, in a region known for at least a generation as one of the city’s deadliest. In 2003, when Chicago retook the dubious title of the United States’ murder capital with 599, it was here – in Johnson’s territory, police beat 1413 – that held the distinction of being the most lethal, with 10 killings within its 28 square blocks. Eight of them were shootings.
Since then? “The next year, zero. The year after that, zero,” Johnson, whose street cred still has currency, says with clear pride. He was able to broker a peace between the two strongest warring factions, the Latin Kings and the Maniac Latin Disciples.
The group, Ceasefire Chicago is not, as far as I can tell, affiliated with Ceasefire Illinois. And they are not anti-gun:
Bans? “That’s what people do when they don’t understand the problem,” says Juan Johnson – or “Big Juan,” as he’s fairly known in the hardscrabble neighbourhoods on Chicago’s gang-infested west side.
My initial impression was they were likely affiliated and that’s the case. And, hey, if gun control is what you do instead of something, I think these guys are actually trying “something”.
There’s also a movie out about them.
July 2nd, 2012 at 9:24 am
Good on them. I assumed they were a Joyce anti-gun group too.
That being said, while there is insane money to be made off of drugs and prostitution there will ALWAYS be the insane amount of gun violence.
People always asked me how I managed to work on fishing boats on long fishing trips for the time that I did. (Same can be said with people watching reality TV shows like “Deadliest Catch”)
People are willing to endure a LOT of danger and discomfort if there is good money involved.
So long as the War on Some Drugs ™ goes on, this will ALWAYS be a lucrative profession.
July 2nd, 2012 at 9:28 am
Operation Ceasefire is the outcome from over two decades of analysis and advocacy of the part of David M. Kennedy and his colleagues. Operation Ceasefire is not affiliated with the various other anti-2A Ceasefire groups in various cities across the country. Mr. Kennedy, formerly of The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, currently at the John Jay School of Law in New York, is a criminologist and has been working the front lines of urban violence since the eighty’s crack wars. He and his colleagues were directly responsible for the so-called “Boston Miracle” by working with federal and local law enforcement, community organizations and the gangs themselves to try to put a stop to gang violence. He and his colleagues have had remarkable successes in numerous cities around the country when their program has been implemented. His latest book. “Don’t Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship and The End of Violence In Inner-City America was published by Bloomsbury in 2011. It’s a very good book and well worth one’s time.
July 2nd, 2012 at 9:37 am
So basically what these guys are doing is walking a beat and getting familiar with the community and it’s trouble makers. It sounds a whole lot like community policing, which the CPD apparently is not doing. Yes, cops out on foot just talking to people do really make a difference. How long till the CPD officers union files a grievance to get the city to stop the mediators?
July 2nd, 2012 at 9:38 am
CF Illinois used to be the same way but then got involved in politics on the anti side by opposing CCW.
http://www.suntimes.com/opinions/4561594-474/fighting-fire-with-firepower-a-no-go.html
July 2nd, 2012 at 10:21 am
Not really Andy … these people don’t have to get familiar with the community because they ARE the community—they’re known to the people, and many of them come from the gangs themselves; they are trusted and have credibility with the gangs and street kids. The CPD would never be able to do the specific kind of work that these people are doing—Plus, it’s not police officer’s job to mediate disputes.
July 2nd, 2012 at 10:29 am
Expanding on Greg’s comment:
Kennedy views bans, like the one Miller is pushing for, as a symptom of the problem, not a cure. “For people desperately searching for a solution, it seems like it makes sense,” says Kennedy. “What they don’t understand is that there are better tools that don’t require law to implement ….”
Kennedy’s research team unpacked what he calls typical trends: They identified 69 distinct street groups, comprising about 1,000 people. Of the 89 homicides, these 1,000 people—less than half a per cent of the city’s population—were connected to more than 75 per cent of them.
Identifying the problem makes the solution relatively simple, Kennedy says. “If we change the behaviour of these people, we solve the problem.” The solution lies not with trying to remove guns from the equation—the proverbial impossible task—but communicating to their users both consequences and options.
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/418838
July 2nd, 2012 at 11:03 am
They need ’em in Oakland.
July 2nd, 2012 at 11:08 am
We on the shootey side of things tell people that de-escalation and avoidance are MUCH more important skills than a quick draw and fast follow-up shot.
Looks like these guys are practicing what we preach.
As long as they stay away from advocating against legal self-protection, I’m for them.
July 2nd, 2012 at 11:32 am
So the gangs are no longer using violence as their primary tool for enforcement, turf control, domain expansion and member recruitment.
I presume those activities are still ongoing, as are the other illegal activities associated with gangs.
What are the gangs doing NOW that leaves violence out of the picture? Have they co-opted the police to be their enforcers, through snitching and arrests? Are they keeping the violence out of the target neighborhoods and killing folks elsewhere? Are they not shooting people, but beating them half to death instead?
Enquiring minds want to know.
July 2nd, 2012 at 12:35 pm
“What are the gangs doing NOW that leaves violence out of the picture? Have they co-opted the police to be their enforcers, through snitching and arrests? Are they keeping the violence out of the target neighborhoods and killing folks elsewhere? Are they not shooting people, but beating them half to death instead?”
I wonder if it’s not the age old practice of collusion and monopolization. The realization that you can make more money if you’re working together and cornering the market instead of killing each other, literally or figuratively….
July 2nd, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Do the gangs get guns from the ATF, or do they have to go across the border to enjoy that benefit?
July 2nd, 2012 at 1:05 pm
I can’t agree with you here Guav. Having grown up in a large city and can tell you what it’s like when the cops walking the beat know the people of the neighborhood. They stop to shoot the bull with people sitting on the porch and the take a break from the beat to shoot hoops with the kids. The people start to trust the local beat cops and don’t treat them like a occupying force, the way many behave today.
Cops spend a large portion of their day mediating disputes where no one is arrested. If you’ve ever had to deal with a domestic dispute you’ll understand this.
If you look at the Peelian Principles and you see how far the modern PD has strayed, it’s no surprise why these mediators can do what the local occupying force can’t/won’t do.
July 2nd, 2012 at 1:19 pm
They are mostly older gang members (active or not) who spent a lot of time in prison and say they want to stop the crazy street violence. Some of them are not as they represent, but many seem to be pretty effective. They have lots of street cred and know and are known by the major players in the local gangs. It’s a fairly inexpensive program. So long as they are not running a hustle while organizing their own operations it seems worth trying.
July 2nd, 2012 at 1:32 pm
I agree Andy. Of course the cop on the beat often used to live on his beat as well, so what you are pointing out dovetails with Guav.
The neighborhood cop had the authority of the badge, the Ceasefire guys have the authority of the (ex)gang.
That authority allow(ed)s both to “keep the peace” without needing to officially involve the “enforcement of a law.”
On the gripping hand, society has changed and a lot of babies got thrown out with the bathwater. Real corruption led to doing away with the voluntary free cup of coffee for “our” cop, and politics and racism necessitated more oversight and restrictions on officer discretion, which was where the ability to assert that casual neighborhood peacekeeping authority primarily lay.
July 2nd, 2012 at 3:08 pm
The Chicago justice system was infiltrated by the street gangs some 30 years ago. The Federal hiring program CETA hired gang women who quickly began to work, from their clerical jobs, to help out their gang brethren. The municipal court system, Police Records, and the dispatch system were all compromised.
Nothing to see here, move along, please.
July 2nd, 2012 at 4:29 pm
I truly hope they can pull it off, but I can’t help but wonder how long it is before THEY are shot down in the street.
July 3rd, 2012 at 10:55 pm
1. Focus on people, not inanimate objects:
“If we change the behaviour of these people, we solve the problem.”
2. Community Policing, cops living the beat:
“The people start to trust the local beat cops and don’t treat them like a occupying force,”
But sadly today we have helmeted SWAT teams and gun bans as the answer.
And as the problem gets worse they just want to ban more objects and militarize more. End result… an occupying army like Thomas Jefferson warned us about with a citizenry that is disarmed.
July 4th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Glad they are having some successes for the sake of keeping the peace, but I’m still wary of any organization similar to CFI
July 8th, 2012 at 6:19 pm
From Second City Cop Blog
Totals from Friday thru July 4th 11:59 PM:
Total People shot is 81 including 17 Murders…
How many conflicts did Cease Fire “Interrupt”?
What a waste of funding when we could have used that Million+ money to hit more Police!
Add in Thursday evening and we’re up to around 90 shot with 19 dead in a mere 6 days. This is probably going to go down as the worst 7 day period in quite a few years, though we doubt the Department will want to brag about it.
And if we had over one hundred shootings, that must mean that CeaseFire interrupted what? A thousand shootings maybe? And saved how many lives? Those guys are amazing!!! Rahm should give them another million fucking dollars!
I find this interesting.
Fred