美国国家公共电台 NPR Treat Gun Violence Like A Public Health Crisis, One Program Says

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

As shootings and homicides continue to devastate 1 some Chicago neighborhoods, advocates are advising people to treat it as a public health crisis. Other cities like New York have embraced this model and say it's helped reduce gun violence. But in Chicago, a violence prevention program has struggled to get fully 2 funded, as NPR's Cheryl Corley reports.

CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE 3: Cure Violence CeaseFire is a violence prevention program that's been a force in several cities in the U.S. and abroad. It gained national attention with the 2011 release of a documentary called "The Interrupters" that showed former gang members intervening to prevent disputes from turning deadly.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "THE INTERRUPTERS")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I'm not no punk or nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Only thing that came to my mind was retaliate 4. They got to know they did the wrong person.

CORLEY: One goal of the program is to get people to think about violence as a public health issue, not just a criminal justice one, a problem that should be treated like a contagious 5 disease.

GARY SLUTKIN: The root cause of cholera 6 is cholera. The root cause of violence is violence.

CORLEY: Epidemiologist Gary Slutkin launched Cure Violence more than 20 years ago. He's a public health professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and says there's a reason why some neighborhoods are plagued by gun violence.

SLUTKIN: The definition of contagious is it produces more of itself. And how much you've been exposed is the predictor of whether you're likely to do it. So this is a health problem.

CORLEY: So violence interrupters and hospital responders, typically former gang members themselves or ex-felons, work like emergency room doctors to quickly sort out disagreements and to try to tamp 7 down violence.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

NIKO WILLIAMS: As far as CeaseFire had helped me, I was out here crazy. I got shot six times.

CORLEY: Niko Williams is a former gang member who talked about CeaseFire during a hearing before Illinois state lawmakers.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

WILLIAMS: Even in the hospital, I was still in the hospital shot, barely can talk, still thinking about getting out the hospital, killing 8 somebody for shooting me.

CORLEY: Williams says it took the constant involvement of a CeaseFire outreach worker to help him change that attitude. There are multiple studies showing the program can make a difference. Northwestern University crime specialist Wesley Skogan conducted one.

WESLEY SKOGAN: So we looked at shootings within gang and crime networks and found that in fact in the CeaseFire areas, there was - shootings were much less likely to generate retaliatory 9 shootings after CeaseFire was introduced.

CORLEY: But in 2013, the city of Chicago did not renew a million dollar grant to CeaseFire. Some officials claimed the program didn't work closely enough with police. Others dislike that many of the violence interrupters were former criminals. During that hearing before state lawmakers, Andre Thomas said it's his experience that makes him credible 10.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ANDRE THOMAS: If I can stop that person from being shot, who cares that I was in prison?

CORLEY: The program lost most of its funding from the state two years ago at the beginning of a long-running budget battle in Illinois. It now runs a scaled down version with private donations and grants. On the streets of Chicago's South Side, Jerusha Hodge is wearing an orange CeaseFire jacket. Years ago, she lost a 9-year-old daughter to gun violence. She is one of six CeaseFire employees working to curtail 11 violence in three sprawling 12 South Side neighborhoods.

JERUSHA HODGE: Oh, we are stretched. Six people for three different communities, that's not enough.

CORLEY: Although the group may be getting the official cold shoulder here, New York City, which has seen the lowest gun violence totals in 30 years, has embraced it wholeheartedly. Eric Cumberbatch heads New York City's Office to Prevent Gun Violence.

ERIC CUMBERBATCH: In 2016, we saw shootings in the areas that the crisis management system Cure Violence is operating go down by 10 percent. We're seeing young people in areas where the Cure Violence model is operating being less likely to revert 13 to violence to solve conflict.

CORLEY: New York is currently investing $25 million in its Cure Violence effort. Javier Lopez, the city's assistant health commissioner 14, says police recognize the partnership 15 between the public health workers and criminal justice.

JAVIER LOPEZ: And I think there's been growing understandings between both of those worlds.

CORLEY: In Chicago, it's an understanding that supporters of Cure Violence CeaseFire say must also play a greater role here to reduce the deadly trend of gun violence infecting some neighborhoods. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.