How to curb gun violence in Illinois involves variables | Opinion

A couple of hours ago I read an extensive story in my morning newspaper about Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issuing an executive order declaring gun violence a public health crisis in the state.

The nature of the story leaves me quite puzzled, even after stewing about it in my mind for one-hundred and twenty minutes. Not for a single minute of that time have I doubted the veracity of the story. No, this is not fake news. The story was produced by Capitol News Illinois, a service of the Illinois Press Association whose mission “is to provide credible and unbiased coverage of state government.”

What puzzles me is Pritzker’s and other politician’s remarks about their intentions to create a “comprehensive approach to ending Illinois’ firearm violence epidemic.” That quote, incidentally, is from the Reimagine Public Safety Act, which Pritzker signed into law in June.

Even though it’s taken a few months for the governor to publicly declare something must be done to end the senseless bloodshed on Illinois streets and back alleys, I’ll give him credit for at least recognizing the senseless slaughter.

He called a news conference Monday to announce his “intent to include greater funding for violence-prevention initiatives in upcoming budgets,” according to Capitol News Service. In other words, let’s throw more money at this problem.

Of course, the gun deaths in Chicago got plenty of attention in the governor’s media event. Pritzker made his comments with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle at his side.

There is no doubt Chicago has become a bloody mess, thanks to guns, and, generally speaking, street gangs. The number of Windy City murders this year is approaching the 700 mark and it’s on pace to top the 774 murders in 2020.

But read a local newspaper or watch the evening news on a local television station and you quickly discover the problem of gun-related violence isn’t isolated in Chicago. It occurs way too frequently in our neighboring cities of Springfield, Decatur, Bloomington, Peoria and points beyond. In recent months, Lincoln also has seen gun-related deaths.

The violence isn’t contained to neighborhoods. Shooting deaths occur in shopping malls, convenience stores, restaurants and other public places where at one time people could feel relatively safe and sheltered from violent acts.

“Gun violence is devastating communities, neighborhoods, blocks and families,” Pritzker said at the news conference. “Mothers, fathers, brothers, friends, are experiencing senseless tragedies in the deaths and serious injuries of their loved ones. This work is urgent.”

The violence is worse in Black and brown communities, Pritzker said, noting, “young Black men die from gun violence at a rate 20 times higher than their white counterparts.”

“This must stop,” said the governor. He definitely earns a big Amen for that comment, which was made before Pritzker announced the money-throwing exercises that have and will be made to supposedly end gun violence in the Prairie State.

The governor told reporters that this year’s state budget includes $50 million to fund the programs laid out in the Reimagine Public Safety Act, adding that his administration will push for another $100 million to be allocated to it each of the next two years.

Pritzker’s office said the state has invested $507 million in violence prevention, diversion and youth employment programs for the current fiscal year, including $125 million funded through the federal American Rescue Plan Act. Yet, the body count keeps rising.

A major thrust of the Reimagine Public Safety Act is the creation of the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention within the Illinois Department of Human Services. That new bureaucracy’s responsibility is to coordinate the state’s violence prevention efforts. The act gives the office and its assistant secretary of firearm violence prevention grant-making authority to distribute the state funds to violence prevention organizations.

Per the governor’s news release, the state plans to begin issuing notices of funding opportunity in the final two months of this year, with a goal of the outreach ramping up by summer 2022.

Pritzker named Chris Patterson to head the violence prevention effort. One of his responsibilities, per the act, is to focus on the most violent neighborhoods in Chicago and across the state as measured by the number of per capita shootings from 2016 to 2020, according to the news report.

“Our work will begin in the most impacted communities in Chicago and across the state,” Patterson said at the news conference Monday. “This will include high-risk youth intervention services, violence prevention and interruption, and trauma recovery.

“The Office of Firearm Violence Prevention will help experts and expert grassroots organizations connect to people at the highest risks of gun violence victimization and take strong measures to reduce their exposure to chronic gun violence.”

He said the new office expects to be able to provide grants to organizations in 22 areas of Chicago and 15 communities across the rest of the state. Those organizations must take a data-driven approach to addressing the most violent areas.

Each year, the office must report to the General Assembly on Jan. 1, explaining the investments being made and making further recommendations on how to end gun violence.

Youth development programs in violent areas will be a major part of the law’s implementation as well.

State Sen. Robert Peters, a Chicago Democrat whose name often appears on the state’s transformative criminal justice policies, ushered the new law through the Senate.

“This is a big win for working class Black, Latino and rural white communities,” Peters said at the news conference. “The status quo policies are failing us. We see this in every corner and every ZIP code of our state. The status quo agenda is bad for public safety. We are seeing young people who are stuck, who are hurting, asking us to step up.”

Rep. Justin Slaughter, a Chicago Democrat and the bill’s House sponsor, said it will take more than state action to curb gun crime. The new law and the executive order from the governor, Slaughter said, are part of an essential effort to redefine gun violence as a health crisis which “is all about the social determinants of health.”

“And what that means is education, economic development, housing, public health, environment. It’s all of these different issues and factors,” he said.

He said Illinois wants to be a national leader in gun violence prevention.

The news conference came Monday after the General Assembly’s fall veto session adjourned and Republicans tried, to no avail, to get Democratic committee chairs to call a number of public safety reforms and sentence enhancements for committee hearings.

As the Capitol News Service story made clear, and as any Illinoisan who loosely follows the happenings of state government well knows, politics clearly comes into play in dealing with gun deaths. In the fall General Assembly veto session that ended this week, Republican lawmakers put together a package of measures focusing on gun violence.

It included a bill to appropriate $100 million to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board to fund grants to local departments for gang violence, carjacking and motor vehicle theft prevention, as well as officer staffing.

But Democrat committee chairs declined to call hearings on the GOP initiatives. One would think an issue that claims hundreds of Illinois lives – children and adults – would be reason enough to put politics aside and take ideas from both sides of the aisle to find solutions.

All of the above are reasons why I’m puzzled. Money, grants, a new bureaucracy, more money for the new bureaucracy, the “social determinants of health,” a “comprehensive approach …” And, how can I forget ugly Illinois politics.

I simply don’t see answers in any of that. To me, the main problem is the importance, respect and reverence of human life is evaporating. Until the great value of human life returns to the forefront, not much will change for the better.

How do you legislate or declare an executive order to accomplish that?

Dan Tackett is a retired managing editor of The Courier. He can be reached at dtackett@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Lincoln Courier: Gun violence public heath crisis in Illinois: How to end it — Opinion