Chicago Anti-Violence Program Gets Results Despite Crime Spike

A new University of Chicago study of an an intensive, 18-month anti-violence program called READI Chicago found that those who took part in in the program were two-thirds less likely to be arrested for a violent crime and nearly 20 percent less likely to be shot themselves than other at-risk residents of the city’s South and West sides, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

Before enrolling, a third of participants had been shot at least once and had an average of 17 arrests on their rap sheet.

Results were even better for the men who were referred in by outreach workers, with arrests dropping nearly 80 percent and shootings by almost half. The test subjects were drawn from among residents deemed most-at risk in Chicago’s Austin, Englewood, North Lawndale, West Englewood and West Garfield Park neighborhoods — communities where nearly a quarter of all murders in Chicago since 2019 took place.

Participants in the program are paid $15 an hour to participate in daily job training and counseling sessions, including cognitive behavioral therapy. The five one-hour CBT sessions each week helped rewire thought processes and examine “risky thoughts” and the consequences of reflexive responses to perceived aggression.

“A randomized controlled trial is the gold standard for research, and these are significant results,” Roseanna Ander, executive director of of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, which helped develop the READI curriculum and conducted the research trial, told the Sun-Times.

READI is funded by $20 million per year in private grants, but Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2022 budget includes $14.5 million for similar programs that have formed a network that covers all of the city’s most-violent neighborhoods.