| Founder(s) | Dr. Gary Slutkin |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2000 |
| Location | Chicago, Ill. |
| Key people | Tio Hardiman |
| Focus | Reducing street violence |
| Method | Street-level outreach, conflict mediation |
| Website | www.ceasefirechicago.org |
CeaseFire is an anti-violence program and initiative of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention aimed at reducing street violence by using outreach workers to interrupt potentially violent situations.[1] These violence interrupters work on the street, mediating conflicts between gangs and intervening to prevent retaliatory shootings and killings.[2] The project was founded in 1995 by Dr. Gary Slutkin, an American epidemiologist who maintains that violence is a public health issue that can be prevented by changing behavioral norms.[2]
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In 2000, the CeaseFire Model was launched in West Garfield, the most violent community in Chicago at the time. CeaseFire produced a 67 percent reduction in shootings in its first year[3] .
CeaseFire received additional funding from the State of Illinois in 2004 to immediately expand from 5 to 15 communities and from 20 to 80 Outreach Workers. That year, homicides declined in Chicago by 25 percent, to a total of 448 homicides, a rate of 15.5 homicides per 100,000 residents [4]
Since 2005, CeaseFire has been providing a hospital-based violence prevention response to violently injured patients from the south and southwest side of Chicago at Advocate Christ Medical Center. The success of the Advocate Christ program led, in 2011, to the creation of a second hospital-based violence prevention program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a level-1 trauma center that treats approximately 1,000 trauma patients annually.[5]
CeaseFire’s founder and executive director, Gary Slutkin, is an epidemiologist and a physician who for 10 years battled infectious diseases in Africa. He says that violence directly mimics infections like tuberculosis and AIDS, and so, he suggests, the treatment ought to mimic the regimen applied to these diseases: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source. [6]
The CeaseFire model was created by Dr. Gary Slutkin. It uses outreach workers, or violence interrupters, to mitigate conflict on the street before it turns violent.[7] These interrupters are oftentimes former gang members who use their street credibility to show community members better ways of communicating with each other and how to resolve conflicts peacefully. [8]
CeaseFire takes a three-pronged approach: detection/interruption of planned violent activity, behavior change of high-risk individuals and changing community norms.[9]
Slutkin has presented the model at the White House Conference on Gang Violence Prevention & Crime Control.[10]
Original funding for CeaseFire came from contributions from federal and state grants, as well as from local foundations and corporations, totaling a $6.2 million budget for 2005 and $9.4 million for 2006. In 2007, Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich discontinued funding, dropping CeaseFire’s budget to $3.2 million.[11]
Currently, CeaseFire operates with funding from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which awarded CeaseFire a grant of $1.8 million for May 2007 to June 2012.[12]
Since the founding of the organization in 2000, the murder rate in Chicago has dropped from 628 that year to 435 in 2010 — the lowest it has been in 45 years. [13]
In May 2008, Professor Wesley G. Skogan, an expert on crime and policing at Northwestern University, completed a three-year, independent, Department of Justice-funded report on CeaseFire, which found that the program successfully reduced shootings and killings by 41% to 73%.[2] Actual and attempted shootings were reduced 16% to 28% in 4 of the 7 sites studied.[14] Retaliatory shootings were reduced 100% in 5 of the 7 communities examined in the report.
Daniel Webster, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, advocates for such an interventionist approach to violent crime, believing the benefits of Ceasefire's intercession are many. On CNN.com, Webster said, ""Violence is reciprocal. Stopping one homicide through mediation could buy you peace for months down the road."[15]
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The Interrupters is a 2011 film, produced by Kartemquin Films, that documents the story of three CeaseFire outreach workers. It was directed and produced by Steve James, director of "Hoop Dreams" and also produced by Alex Kotlowitz, an author who first wrote about the organization for the New York Times Magazine in 2009. [18] The film emphasizes the notion that much of the violence on the streets results from interpersonal conflict, rather than from gang-related disputes. [18]
The film follows three interrupters -- Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra. Ameena, the daughter of Jeff Fort -- a major gang leader in the 70s -- spent time as a teen involved in a gang, and now takes to the streets to keep kids from doing the same. [18] Ricardo "Cobe" Williams did three stints in jail for attempted murder and drug-related charges, and Eddie Bocanegra served 14 years in jail for a murder he committed at age 17. [19]
The film premiered at 2011 Sundance and is scheduled for a PBS Frontline broadcast after summer theatrical releases. [20]
CeaseFire has received national media coverage, including a New York Times Magazine feature.[21]
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