The phone rang, and it was Arne Duncan on the line. He was on his way to Roseland, he said, in hopes he might help prevent violent retribution for a killing the previous week.
The homicide happened outside the Youth Peace Center of Roseland, on Chicago's Far South Side. Stephon Mack, 24, the man who was killed, had come for the life coaching and job training provided by Duncan’s organization, Create Real Economic Destiny, better known as CRED. A security guard trying to protect him also was shot.
CRED identifies young men and women most likely to be involved in violent crime and seeks to change their lives before they shoot or get shot. There are roughly 25,000 such “acutely at-risk” young people in about 15 Chicago neighborhoods, CRED’s research shows.
Mack got shot working to turn his life around. The shooter rode in a car with another man and sped away, Duncan said. Chances are, they won’t be caught. Fewer than 10% of shootings in Roseland lead to arrest, according to CRED.
“What I think about is those two young men who woke up, got in their car, and their whole intent was to kill,” Duncan said. “If these two young men had been in the building instead of outside the wall, their lives would be changed. We’re serving lots of guys, but nowhere near enough.”
The sorrow and frustration sum up the city’s despair over an inability to slow a two-year surge in violent crime.
The day before Mack was killed, Duncan gave a PowerPoint presentation to the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. Filled with data and analysis, it spelled out a path toward a less wretched Chicago. He reprised much of the argument for reporters later that day.
The speech marked a public debut for Duncan’s likely run for mayor of Chicago. In that respect, he’s about where Lori Lightfoot was four years ago. Then the president of the Chicago Police Board, infuriated by police Officer Jason Van Dyke’s fatal shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald, Lightfoot was on the cusp of launching her mayoral campaign on a claim she could tame a rogue police force and make the streets safer at the same time.
Now in the third year of her term, Lightfoot has come up mostly empty on crime. Duncan, who was secretary of education under President Barack Obama, is the one who’s full of bright-sounding ideas now.
More effective policing, $400 million a year on violence prevention, active engagement with neighborhood-based nonprofits and a targeted approach toward violence intervention: Those are key steps to lowering Chicago’s violent crime rate, Duncan says.
The need has never been greater. Chicago’s homicide rate, per capita, is at least three times higher than Los Angeles and five times that of New York. Duncan argues the violence reduction programs and related economic development ideas he proposes — at a cost of about $2.3 billion over five years — can sharply reduce the homicide rate and also create $19 in economic benefit for every $1 spent.
Lightfoot and her police superintendent, David Brown, have focused on handgun seizures as a key tactic in their crime fight. But Duncan presented data that shows the seizure of more than 12,000 guns last year — up more than 50% since the year Lightfoot took office — seemingly had little effect on the 797 homicides reported by the Chicago Police Department last year. It was the highest tally in a quarter of a century.
And in his video call with reporters, Duncan scoffed at Lightfoot’s tactic of seizing assets from gang members to weaken them financially and break their hold on Chicago’s youths. Gang members “don’t have assets to speak of,” Duncan said.
Little that Lightfoot and Brown have tried seems to be working. Not Brown’s citywide police unit tasked with concentrating force where violence hits. Not Lightfoot’s Invest South/West initiative, which may transform violence-prone neighborhoods over time, but not quickly enough to make a difference now.
Duncan has his own plans. So will anyone else who challenges Lightfoot in next year’s election.
Duncan ran Chicago’s schools. He co-founded CRED in 2016. His ideas are bolstered by careful analysis from the Bain & Co. consulting firm — waterfall charts, grids, data stacked in colors and columns.
It looks good; it sounds logical. But that hardly means Duncan’s right.
Should Duncan run for mayor, CRED’s track record will come under scrutiny. In five years of effort, CRED says it has changed the lives of 650 Chicago young people through counseling and job coaching. This raises questions about whether a CRED-inspired approach could be scaled citywide.
Consider Roseland, where CRED has concentrated efforts for five years. Homicides are down 28%, compared with a 21% citywide increase in that time. But shootings are up 31%, identical to the growth rate of shootings across Chicago, city data shows.
Duncan is wary of having his ideas and CRED’s track record sized up in comparison to Lightfoot’s. “There’s no competition. It’s all supplemental, additive,” he told me.
“I want to hold all of us accountable,” Duncan added. “Let’s be honest about the facts, and let’s not keep doing things that aren’t effective.”
Bloody experience is telling the whole city what’s not working. Finding what will work — whoever’s in charge — is a matter of life and death.
