When shots ring out on the South and West sides of Chicago, Sam Castro and his team at the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago race to the scene of the shooting and to the hospital where emergency responders are treating the gunshot victim.
Knowing most of the city’s gun violence is caused by a small cluster of people who are usually gang-affiliated, the group wants to prevent the often-expected retaliation shooting by intervening in victims’ lives to stop the cycle of violence and the revolving doors of the hospital.
Castro, the organization’s director of community violence intervention, and his colleagues meet gunshot victims at their hospital beds and walk the streets of the Austin, Back of the Yards, Brighton Park and West Garfield Park neighborhoods, talking with those who are at a high risk of committing or being the victim of gun violence. They offer individualized “wraparound” support services, whether being a caseworker, delivering food or helping residents find and keep jobs.
