Rogers Park residents realize that we have real criminality and gangbanging on our streets – of greatest concern are the gang conflicts over drug turf resulting in murder, shooting injuries, and street beatings. Therefore, a closer look into CeaseFire’s claims of success is appropriate. However, any answer to “cause and effect” questions about gun violence must include assessing the impact of several factors, including CAPS, as noted by the Chicago Justice Project.
Rogers Park was a CeaseFire target community until their state funding was gutted last summer. Their funding and staffing always suffered from ebbs and flows. My church, United Church of Rogers Park at Morse and Ashland Avenues, was a strong supporter of CeaseFire from the start. We provided 24-hour access to a large office and meeting space at minimal cost. We participated day and night in CeaseFire’s prayer vigils, held in the aftermath of too many shootings to count. Our church welcomed and supported them as a partner when they either led or joined in activities to involve community residents in addressing the fundamental issues that lead to involvement in gangs by local youth.
We always hoped that CeaseFire’s gang intervention program was effective. Although I will not speak for anyone but myself, in hindsight I can acknowledge that many church members were ambivalent about the organization. We had unresolved questions about what CeaseFire was doing. The program statistics did seem dubious. We wondered if their work really helped reduce gun violence here.
What about CAPS in Rogers Park?
When CeaseFire arrived in our community, our pastor and church members were already scrutinizing our 24th police district’s Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy program, as was every local blog and resident who participated in CAPS. It did not take long for some of us to reach the conclusion that for all its potential and a few bright spots, CAPS was mostly an expensive waste of time and money.
A great deal of work goes into making CAPS happen, and I applaud firstly all residents who attend meetings, and in particular, a few of the officers and some CAPS beat meeting citizen facilitators who have earnestly tried to make it work during it’s nearly two decade tenure. In that category, I’d also credit Alicia Lopez, from the 49th ward service office, who has often delivered real service to the many citizens who regularly attended CAPS beat meetings. At the opposite end of the spectrum, are the poor communications that begin with too many officers and residents who show up at meetings with obstructionist, confrontational, angry, and just plain “bored to be here” attitudes. The problem factor also includes the local businesses and apartment building owners who drag their feet and/or don’t cooperate and the police department’s systemic problems reporting and sharing crime info.
Crime fighting is hard and success is transitory at best. However, from what we’ve seen of CAPS as a solution, it has been keen on self-promotion, but feeble when it comes to accountability, responsiveness to the residents, and product. In essence, CAPS is a weak public relations show for the Chicago Police Department, but apparently an important one nonetheless.
CeaseFire, as interpreted by a CAPS researcher
In the current media campaign to return state funding to CeaseFire, Northwestern University professor Wes Skogan’s recent upbeat “analysis” of CeaseFire came as no surprise. Folks in this social service/policy wonk club feed at some of the same troughs and must reinforce each other to survive.
Years ago, Skogan was astute enough to realize that CAPS could be a very productive line of inquiry. University professors must "publish or perish" right? Skogan understood that he could publish studies on CAPS if he had two essential ingredients 1) funding to support his work and 2) access to the CAPS and crime data that were the subject of his work.
Skogan relies on heavy-duty foundation dollars, his university, and public support to underwrite the costs of the voluminous amount of research that he and his student staffers conduct and publish. He has been given over a decade of access to eyes-only crime and CAPS data. The problem is that in exchange for access, he operates with the understanding (from police officials, funders, politicos?) that he will ignore or sugarcoat any criticism of CAPS and its management that might be seriously damaging. I asked him about this possibility a few years ago, and he summarily dismissed my concerns. Well, the need for improvements in 1) community policing training for police officers, 2) training for CAPS citizen-facilitators, 3) information reporting and sharing by the police department, 4) responsiveness by them all to residents, and 5) like CeaseFire, improved accountability are a few items that still need to be put on the police department’s action agenda. Of course, there are also social service issues to be tackled, which fuel the need for police services in the first place.
Today, thanks to CAPS, Skogan is an author with national acclaim. Yet, his reputation is based on what some realize is a serious disservice to Chicago residents who either directly or indirectly support his work. His studies and findings reveal little objective evaluation or serious critique of the system he examines. In a sense, he is a public relations advocate for an entity of which he is supposedly independent. The police department, like most government authorities, is happy with this arrangement. To be generous, I could imagine that Skogan may not like this deal. In fact, he could be in deep and quiet anguish about it. However, it doesn’t matter, because his service to us as an evaluator of CAPS reflects poorly on his credibility. The problem is compounded when he stands up to support CeaseFire.
CAPS and CeaseFire both look good on paper. In Rogers Park, we desperately need these two institutions to perform the way they say they do. For now, the reality is that the management, execution, and product of both leave much to be desired.
Peace,
Michael J. Harrington
Member, Board of Trustees
United Church of Rogers Park
10 comments:
imho, we need 2 things above all.-
sane drug laws that treat addiction as the public health problem that it is. in chicago, of all places, we should know that prohibition only fuels the harm, and that harm reduction is the gateway to solving the problems, one addict at a time.
the other thing we need is comprehensive support for overwhelmed families. whatever brings them to that place, we need to be there for them, especially for mothers. we need free preschool for 3 and 4 year olds. and we need education reforms that acknowledge that many children come to school hungry for the emotional support that they do not have at home. teachers may not want to be substitute parents, but everything that i know about humans as a species tells me that these kind of institutions are the back stops that communities need to flourish. we need to accept that, and have schools that do it. there are many small changes that can make big change.
when it comes to youth who face adulthood feeling that they have no better alternative than to be thugs, i have no real clue. back in our history such males joined the gang that hunted down the food, or guarded the tribe. we seem to have blocked them out of everything now, and have this chaos as a result.
it seems to me that it is mostly too late by the time these kids pick up a gun. or at least it is a period in their lives when intervention is particularly difficult.
i think the answer to it all is healing. i do not know where to begin with that.
Hello, been there. I agree with ideas like "comprehensive support for overwhelmed families." Sadly, we voters haven't the political will to insist on funding for programs that make sense. Our "leaders" always ignore the human capital development needs of residents in favor of supporting people with clout. These days it seems "people with clout" means anybody but us.
Our money goes, at the federal level, to a chest-thumping, unending war in Iraq. At the city government level, we see TIF and tax giveaways to "developers with a plan" because we don't have a community plan of our own, or we haven't made enough political campaign donations.
Citizens like you and I can complain forever about these destructive priorities, but when will we take note of who is making them? Can you and I unite and make some changes in who is making these nutty decisions?
So far, election after election, the decisionmakers have been able to count on people like you and me failing to agree.
you are right about the ability to divide serving those on the the other end of the stick. we have got to learn.
i have a lot of faith in barack obama. maybe i am being naive. but i see so much intelligence in his policies. i was already a fan, but in his speech after the wisconsin primary he said he wanted to see art and music back in the schools. i fell right then. that is a man who sees the big picture.
and honestly, not that i think ritchie daley is perfect, but i think there has been a lot of change for the good in chicago schools since he has been mayor. when he was elected, they were overcrowded messes, with leaking roofs and peeling paint. it has taken a while, but i think he will long be remembered for all the new schools that were built during his reign, including jordan, new field, the rehab of armstrong, and the math and science academy (sorry, spacing on the name.)
federal policies have certainly pushed in the wrong direction. and to enrich those who sold stupid curricula, tests, and books.
you know, art saves lives. perhaps that is why the rich assholes of the world want to own it, turn it into a commodity, and keep it under wraps, where the rabble can't see it.
i don't really know any kids that were turned around by punishment. order, maybe. but punishment? only makes a hard kid harder. but i know a lot of kids that turned on to a whole new world through art or music.
and just my pet peeve, of the "if i had a magic wand" variety- high school should start at noon. kids circadian clocks are a biological fact, they turn toward a semi-nocturnal state for a good evolutionary reason. making them turn the other way, especially kids trying to get a better opportunity by going to a magnet, and getting a long bus ride in the deal, is just plain stupid. this causes kids to either drop out, or go crazy. i wish i had numbers for how many kids end up committing suicide because of this. but one it too many. with the stroke of a pen, this could be changed. but people would rather ignore the facts, and make kids try to measure up to some protestant work ethic bull.
rambling, i guess. easy to do in a world full of so much stupidity, greed and pain.
no doubt, tho, that division is necessary to make a mess such as we find ourselves in. i know that barack has inspired me to try a little harder to reach out, and be more tolerant. looking forward to november, and a little better world.
peace, sir. yes we can make a better world.
History in the making... Mark this on your calendar everybody. The 'Broken Heart' is having a love fest. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
hey, it's all barack obama's fault.
seriously, campaigning for him has really been an amazing experience. reaching across what would have been huge divides, which turned into nothing, because i was wearing an obama button.
like woodstock, but without the mud and the bad acid.
barak obama is a product of the corrupt and unsalvagable democratic party here. That alone renders him unacceptable to be the President. When you factor in all the dis-qualifiers, it becomes apparent he's a disaster waiting to happen. Let's hope the American public wakes up, smells the coffee and votes for ANYBODY else. Hell, I'd even take Hillary over him!
you've got your opinion big daddy. and i have mine. unfortunately, your is a product of baseless cynicism, and mine is a product of actual facts. (as the man himself said- cynicism is a sorry sort of wisdom. and i say- nothing useful comes of it.)i also support the amazing people's movement that is behind him. that is not a product of chicago politics.
besides which, hillary is the product of the same rich assholes as bush.
i'm gonna drop this right here, tho. it was not my intent to turn this into a big "vote barack" thing. it is not something i want to argue here.
Of course your opinion is based on facts and mine on baseless cynicism. That can be the only explanation. What else could it be. You and your kind are right and everybody that disagrees with you is wrong. Or so you think. Your mindset is so typical of your kind. Smug,arrogant and based upon wishful thinking, not reality.
Hey, been there. Thanks for your additional comments and insight into what inspires and motivates your hope for change. I hope for change as well. You and I also agree on this – we both expect a Democratic Party victory in the fall.
Earlier I wrote that, “So far, election after election, the decisionmakers have been able to count on people like you and me failing to agree.” Your reply was, “you are right about the ability to divide serving those on the other end of the stick. we have got to learn.” (Craig, seeing progress in our dialogue, senses the stirrings of a “love fest.” Ha, I’m all for it.).
We agree also about no longer being pulled into arguments over Obama’s qualifications. The time for that is over. Some love or like him. Some are skeptical of or hate him. So be it. His appeal for votes here was never in doubt. It is a foregone conclusion that he will win Illinois with the lion’s share of the vote, and even more so in our Rogers Park neighborhood, the place we both care about most.
It is now time for us to think about and plan for the future of our home, Rogers Park. To that end, I want to share a great observation that blogger Brandon Q just posted on his blogsite at http://www.thesuperspade.com/5-things-you-should-be-talking-about/
“I support Obama BUT the most visible change you will probably ever realize takes place where you live. The greatest travesty will happen if Obama gives his inauguration address and will ask people to essentially be community organizers and the bulk of his supporters respond, “Never mind, I just wanted him to get in office.” When Obama says change from the bottom up, he is talking about you stop looking at him for change and be soldiers for change at the local level.”
So, will we do that? Will we become local change agents, for instance, right here in Rogers Park? Unfortunately, instead of Obama’s refreshing “Yes We Can” slogan, history says that after the election the answer will be “No We Won’t.”
Recall, that after “our side” elected Mayor Harold Washington most of us just breathed a sigh of relief. We were utterly exhausted from the campaign, and we sat back, still full of hope and hoping for the best. Meanwhile, “their side” did a mid-course correction and hounded the man into an early grave. Where did that leave us?
Citywide, grassroots political organizations (like Network 49 and other ward-based Washington support groups) went dormant and eventually died too. The wonderful, policy changes we worked for were transitory and then vanished. We built no sustainable community-based groups to advocate for and help implement the policies and plans that inspired us.
We’ve been thinking about national and global priorities for so long, that many of us have overlooked the need to act locally and establish some priorities right here. I asked earlier, and will ask again, “Citizens like you and I can complain forever about these destructive priorities, but when will we take note of who is making them? Can you and I unite and make some changes in who is making these nutty decisions?”
i think that it has always been the goal of the obama campaign to build a movement to govern, not just to win. funny you should bring up harold. i see very much of harold in barack, and i think that barack learned a lot from being in the grassroots in harold's day.
barack also stands on the shoulders of howard dean. his amazing campaign did not go away. he started something that led to obama's nearly 2 million donors, and to his own chairmanship. make no mistake, the netroots did not stay on the net, pissing and moaning. they got on the bus. they knocked on doors. they are out there registering voters, and they will be making sure those voters get out there.
re your final paragraph, speak for yourself, kimosaby. although i love elections, and have very strong opinions about national politics, i do work hard at the local level. working on issues, supporting local candidates, and being involved in my kid's lives, like their schools.
all that is a great antidote to the frustration of national politics. of course, i don't need an antidote right now. i am itching to dive in to this movement. if i can start in my own backyard, so much the better.
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