Issues

Crime is complex and has to be addressed aggressively in several major ways simultaneously. A combination of policing methods can reduce crime. The evidence is clear that more guns, gangs, poor job opportunities, income inequality, and a broken criminal justice system combine to increase crime rates. First, I'll immediately join the US Congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.

There are a number of proven, successful programs that the federal government has been reluctant to fund beyond small pilot programs. These programs work, and are phenomenally good investments; every investor would be rich getting these returns on investment. The problem, as with many government and public investments: the costs are concentrated and the benefits are diffuse. There may be ways to align these. Even if there aren’t, Congress should fund these programs that clearly work according to rigorous academic research. This Administration fired 3/4th of the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention, and lost the important work they do to reduce gun violence, including maintaining data on gun deaths and injuries.

Reduce gun crimes through multiple policies: Chicago had 573 homicides in 2024, and 2758 shooting victims. 80-90% likely involved firearms. About 200 in our own 7th District. Some 60% of the guns used came from out-of-state. We can and must do better.

Nationally, over 15,000 US gun homicides in 2024, and 48,000 gun deaths. More than half were suicides. Canada's gun homicides: 287; Spain: 53; Australia: 25. This is a national problem. Our neighboring states have looser gun laws. We need better local and national laws to prevent cross-border guns from being used in Illinois 7th CD crimes.

We can no longer rely on the 2nd Amendment to preserve states' rights to regulate guns (McDonald 2010), since the Court suddenly decided, after 200 years of being overlooked by previous Courts, that the Amendment now gives individuals a right to "bear arms," - a military reference - including military assault rifles, regardless of any militia role (Heller 2008). There's no sport or hunting use for civilian military-style assault rifles. Their purpose is to kill, and they kill every day. We should explore every other policy approach to protect our families.

·         Reduce cross-border guns; this is not easy but we should be experimenting with the best options. Chicago's rapid Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) federal collaboration should be expanded.

·         Longer gun purchase waiting periods: Waiting periods reduce homicides by 17%. It's not clear yet how much longer periods decrease gun homicides. 14 states have longer waiting periods than our 3-day wait. Surely our gun owners would wait another few days if it saved even one of their neighbors from suicide.

Allow gun tracing that is currently prohibited of stolen and missing guns by gun dealers, and require new firearms to have a second, hidden serial number harder for criminals to remove. Rep. Quigley's TRACE Act would do this. I'll consponsor his bill.

·         More Chicago Police Department federal funding, though it is less than 5% of the CPD budget, dropped sharply last year. It's badly needed to funding promising pilot programs and investigative assistance from other federal agencies. We welcome funding, but less than a third of ICE arrestees have a criminal record.

·         Greater federally funded investigation assistance from the FBI, ATF, and other federal agencies. More ATF enforcement of existing gun laws.

·         More investment in education, school retention, job training, after school youth and mentor programs in high-crime communities. These programs work. Beyond their fairly low costs and moral benefits, they have very high economic returns, often paying back $3-7 for each dollar spent on them according to academic research. Each year of schooling reduces a person’s likelihood of committing a crime to 10-20%.

·         More federally funded city-suburb cooperation. CPD and our suburban communities use many of the policing and crime reduction methods. Cooperative policing experimentation with federal funding could reduce crime across the 7th District.

·         Recidivism reduction such as reentry and job training are effective. Nationally, recidivism prevention programs have apparently reduced 3-year recidivism by about 23% in the US. Programs such as the 2008 Second Chance Act have played a role; this and similar programs likely have high investment returns in many ways in addition to lowering crime rates. They typically include services to help reenter society through job training, housing assistance, and mental health help for those leaving prison.

·         More federal funding for proven programs. While more patrol officers does reduce crime, the federal government funders should closely evaluate and selectively fund other programs that may achieve greater crime reductions for the same or less cost: for example, hot spot policing, problem-oriented policing, community-oriented policing, and predictive deterrence are strategies that have shown positive impacts.

·         Procedural Justice Training; trust in policing reduces crime. When police activity is seen as legitimate and fair, and all citizens treated with dignity, crime drops. Body cameras have been shown, for example, to increase the civility and respect shown by all in some studies.