With violent crime falling in Chicago, advocates seek to grow successful programs
Leaders from various groups helping disrupt crime met to discuss what has been going on this summer, and how to grow programs that are clearly working.
Homicides in Chicago are down 57% so far in 2025 over the same period of time in 2024, and Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to spread the good word. But some working on the streets in non-police capacities to help tamp down crime cautioned that officials and advocates should not talk too much and jinx what's happening.
"We're in the middle of the game, and you're pitching a perfect game, and you don't want to talk about it, right?" said Aaron Rivas, the Little Village community director of Scaling Community Violence Intervention for a Safer Chicago, or SC2.
Rivas on Tuesday addressed a group of members of CVI, or Community Violence Intervention. The Little Village community where they met has seen homicides plummet a stunning 72% from the same time last year.
"It's more people that are alive, less funerals that we have to deal with, less court advocacy that we have to, you know, be a part of," Rivas said.
Citywide, from Jan. 1 through July 13, homicides are down 32% compared with the same stretch last year. Fatal shootings are down 36%, and shootings as a whole are down 40%.
What is the secret sauce of 2025?
"Summer is always kind of an anxious time for us," said Rivas. "We don't want to say, 'Man, it's quiet out here,' because as soon as we turn a block, you know, things can change.
The goal of SC2 leadership is to cut the city's 2021 homicide rate in half to 400.
"Then our goal is to cut it in half again in the coming decade, from 400 to 200 homicides," said Susan Lee, executive director of SC2.
Former Chicago Public Schools chief executive officer and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan now leads Chicago CRED, an anti-gun violence organization in the city. He said the last time there were fewer than 400 homicides in Chicago was in 1965.
"We can't incarnate ourselves out of this. We have to give people a chance to do something different," said Duncan. "Being able to do that collectively is why these numbers are starting to change."
For those on the ground, getting to the end of summer safely is job number one.
"Something can happen in an instant that can have a ripple effect," said Rivas.
CVI, or Community Violence Intervention, comes from the University of Chicago Crime Lab. The organization said using "credible messengers" and behavioral science-informed interventions helps deescalate stressful situations before they lead to violence.
The city and county are committing more dollars toward the programs.
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About 10% say they have already made certain purchases in hopes of getting them in before the price hikes, while 27% said they have delayed purchases for products that cost more than $500. Generally, this worry is the most acute concerning smartphones, laptops and home appliances. Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman and Trump critic, voiced concerns about when to buy certain things in a post on Bluesky just after Trump's "Liberation Day" announcements. In it, he suggested that consumers might want to stock up on certain items before tariff inflation hits. "It's not a bad idea to go to the local Walmart or big box retailer and buy lots of consumables now," Cuban wrote. "From toothpaste to soap, anything you can find storage space for, buy before they have to replenish inventory. Even if it's made in the USA, they will jack up the price and blame it on tariffs." 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Those things are often contradictory: If manufacturing moves to the US or if a bunch of countries are exempt from tariffs, then tariffs aren't actually being collected and can't be used to finance anything. This and many other points have led a lot of economists to allege that Trump's plans are misguided. As for returning -- or "reshoring" -- manufacturing in the US, tariffs are a better tool for protecting industries that already exist because importers can fall back on them right away. Building up the factories and plants needed for this in the US could take years, leaving Americans to suffer under higher prices in the interim. That problem is worsened by the fact that the materials needed to build those factories will also be tariffed, making the costs of "reshoring" production in the US too heavy for companies to stomach. These issues, and the general instability of American economic policies under Trump, are part of why experts warn that Trump's tariffs could have the opposite effect: keeping manufacturing out of the US and leaving consumers stuck with inflated prices. Any factories that do get built in the US because of tariffs also have a high chance of being automated, canceling out a lot of job creation potential. To give you one real-world example of this: When warning customers of future price hikes, toy maker Mattel also noted that it had no plans to move manufacturing to the US. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the notion that Apple's iPhone -- the most popular smartphone in the US market -- can be manufactured entirely in the US. This has been broadly dismissed by experts, for a lot of the same reasons mentioned above, but also because an American-made iPhone could cost upward of $3,500. One report from 404 Media dubbed the idea "a pure fantasy." The overall sophistication and breadth of China's manufacturing sector have also been cited, with CEO Tim Cook stating in 2017 that the US lacks the number of tooling engineers to make its products. For more, see how tariffs might raise the prices of Apple products and find some expert tips for saving money.
