What Will It Take?

Two years into Chicago's surge in gun violence, WBEZ asks: What's being tried, is it working, and what's next?

This year opened with gun violence in Chicago as high as last year, when a person was shot nearly every other hour.

The rate of shootings has slowed in recent months. The year-to-date shooting-victim tally, almost 3,500, is down 18 percent from last year but remains higher than any other year going back more than a decade.

In response to the escalated gun violence, Mayor Rahm Emanuel laid out a wide-ranging plan in September 2016. It included hiring more police officers, increasing youth mentorship programs, and investing more in neighborhoods.

And the city wasn’t alone in making changes. Lawmakers in Springfield passed stricter gun penalties, the federal government sent in reinforcements, and philanthropic organizations and community groups intensified efforts to get shooters off the streets and into the workforce.

Whether these efforts are making a big difference is not easy to gauge, but it’s important to try. Chicagoans deserve solutions to the crisis.

As the year draws to a close, here are progress reports on some of the most talked-about responses to Chicago’s gun-violence surge.