Chicago CRED (Creating Real Economic Destiny) teaches former gang members and at-risk men in their 20s who are trying to escape gang life job skills, provides intensive life and trauma coaching, and tutoring toward their high school diploma or GED. About a dozen men also are part of CRED's voluntary rehabilitation program that helps them write

Chicago police seized about 7,000 guns per year between 2013 and 2016 -- about half of which could be traced back to a point of purchase. About 25 percent of the guns found at crime scenes or used illegally were purchased at just 10 federally licensed retail gun shops in the Illinois and Indiana suburbs. That's

Chicago Tribune columnist Dahleen Glanton writes of two beloved teachers from two very different neighborhoodswho shared the tragic distinction of being unintended victims of gun violence while going about their daily lives – three years and 20 miles apart. "Chances are that Betty Howard and Cynthia Trevillion never crossed paths in life. On the surface, it might

In a New York Times op-ed, four leaders in the effort to reduce gun violence are calling on the federal government to better fund the kind of local intervention strategies pioneered across the country and in development here in Chicago. The community-led strategies are built around partnerships with neighborhood organizations, local police, social services providers and

During a dire week in which Chicago approached 500 homicides for the year, we also saw a beacon of hope. JPMorgan Chase announced that it would invest $40 million in economically deprived neighborhoods on the South and West sides where chronic poverty and violence go hand in hand. Certainly, no one thinks an infusion of cash can solve

This August, 45 people died from 249 incidents of gun violence in Chicago, according to reporting by DNAinfo. Those are tragic numbers, but they actually represent a drop in violence from last summer, when 369 August shootings claimed the lives of 79 people. In 2016, the city experienced a major spike in gun homicide, prompting a

JPMorgan Chase plans to invest $40 million in Chicago's historically underserved South and West sides in an effort to tackle the city's poverty and violence through economic growth. The three-year initiative by the nation's largest bank is its second-biggest commitment to a single city, following an infusion of $150 million into Detroit. It amounts to a 50

WBEZ's Chip Mitchell profiled a Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities initiative in an August 7 segment, "To Curb Chicago's Gun Violence, Foundations To Provide Jobs And Therapy To Shooters." Heartland Alliance designed and coordinates the initiative, called Rapid Employment and Development Initiative (READI), which connects individuals at highest risk of being a victim or perpetrator