Oct 28, 2009 6:39 pm US/Central
New $18 Million Plan Could Save 300 Lives A Year
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
A public health researcher says a program he founded could cut Chicago's murder rate in half and save hundreds of millions of tax dollars in the process. He says it could prevent 300 murders every year, but it would require taxpayers to invest up front $18 million a year.
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports that CeaseFire Founder Gary Slutkin pointed to a new study of his program. Done at Northwestern University, the study was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.
It found that CeaseFire had achieved extraordinary success in reducing violence in Chicago neighborhoods.
Cease Fire, however, is currently active in only a few communities. The state of Illinois, facing a severe budget shortfall, has cut CeaseFire's funding to $3 million a year.
Slutkin said it would cost $18 million a year for CeaseFire to serve every Chicago neighborhood that needs its community outreach workers and trained "violence interrupters."
Slutkin compares them to the public health workers who helped reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS by convincing people to change their sexual behavior. He says the plague of violent gun crime in Chicago is a sort of social disease that also can be controlled by changing people's behavior.
Violence Interrupter Ameena Matthews told CBS 2 about an incident she stopped last week in Englewood.
Two groups of armed teenagers were about to go to war with each other. A local grandmother asked Matthews to intervene. She met with the young gunmen. In the end, there was no shooting.
"I know she saved a life last week," the grandmother said.
CBS 2 watched Matthews work Wednesday as police investigated the discovery of a woman's naked body in a trash can in Englewood.
Police detectives said it was the fourth apparent murder within 32 hours in a five-block radius. Many in the area say they are terrified.
"You just come out your house running," said resident Latasha Claiborne. "'Cause you don't know which way to look, if you get shot coming in your yard, coming out your house. You don't know."
Shootings and killings in Chicago totaled 2,522 in 2008, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $2 billion. The average cost per incident was $793,000 for medical care, lawyers, police, prosecution and prison.
Slutkin was on the phone Wednesday with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. They're interested in Slutkin's claim that violence should be treated as a disease, and in the success CeaseFire has had.
"There's an enormous big dollar payoff in preventing murders," Slutkin said. "In addition to that, there are things that people haven't put dollar amounts on, including preventing young children from seeing their classmates killed."
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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