Pritzker, Johnson pledge massive boost for violence prevention programs

After a violent holiday weekend that saw nearly 100 people shot, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago-area lawmakers, business leaders and philanthropies announced plans for long-term investment in violence prevention programs.

At a news conference at the Loop headquarters of the Crown Family Philanthropies, business leaders made good on a pledge of $100 million in private funding for anti-violence programs that target residents who are statistically likely to be involved in gun violence as a shooter or victim. Those funds come on top of hundreds of millions of public dollars pledged in the budget for Chicago, Cook County and the state.

Pritzker noted the stunning statistics on Chicago violence over the Fourth of July weekend: 19 people killed and 100 wounded in shootings citywide. “It’s a tragic and painful reminder of the urgency of the work that we’re here to [discuss] and how much more there is left to be done," he said.

The programs — which hire and train neighborhood residents who often have been involved in street violence to intervene in conflicts and recruit their former peers into the program — are not new. But funding in recent years has hit unprecedented levels. A website launched Monday by a joint state and local government task force tabulated more than $225 million spent by public and private sources on violence prevention in 2023.

The $100 million in private donations is part of a target of $400 million in spending to increase the number of participants in anti-violence programs to half, and then three-quarters, of all Chicago residents who are considered at the highest level of risk of shooting someone or being shot themselves. The public-private effort is called Scaling Communty Violence Prevention for a Safer Chicago or SC2.

Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling also referred to the weekend violence in their remarks, with Johnson calling for justice for victims of violence as well as investment in community development and mental health, comparing such spending to 1960s-era Great Society programs rolled out by President Lyndon Johnson.“It will take a sustained investment in our people,” Johnson said. “We had a chance 60 years ago to invest in [solving] the root causes, and we were mocked.”