One of the most urgent decisions facing Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson is whom to appoint as police superintendent. The job description is daunting, as Chicago is facing a dual crisis: devastatingly high rates of gun violence and a police department lacking trust from the community it exists to serve.
These challenges are symptomatic of national trends on gun violence and police legitimacy, both of which disproportionately affect Black Americans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2020, 61% of all gun homicide victims were Black, despite Black people representing only 12.5% of the population. Meanwhile, vividly publicized homicides by the police have sent Americans’ public opinion of the police to new lows.
For too long, conversations about the dual crises of gun violence and police legitimacy have existed in silos. As a result, we’ve largely failed to discuss and adopt what’s needed most: solutions that address both social justice crises simultaneously.
With the current leadership transition at the Chicago Police Department, the city has an opportunity to take on this hard truth and create a policing culture that works to reduce gun violence while increasing community trust. Research shows that these two goals are closely linked. Effective policing is essential to reducing gun violence in Chicago. And to make CPD more effective, the community must view the police as reliable. When communities trust the police, people are more likely to call 911, residents are more likely to cooperate with police investigations and violence reduction efforts are more successful.
Making the police more trustworthy and effective is easier said than done. However, our more than 30 years of experience and a wide body of research tell us it’s possible to make police departments like Chicago’s more effective at reducing gun violence, while also being more respectful of communities.
First, proactive policing efforts can be a tool for reducing gun violence and building community trust. But to work, they must have a narrow and strategic focus on select city blocks and individuals with a history of violence. The recent tragic death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis, Tennessee, police officers in the Scorpion unit is a devastating example of proactive policing done wrong. Scorpion officers were not focused on violent crimes, not assigned to fixed beats, and not subject to oversight and accountability.
The lesson from Memphis should not be for police to disengage entirely from patrol work; when done right this type of strategic policing can reduce shootings and improve community trust. For example, the Kansas City Gun Experiment assigned officers to patrol a handful of the most dangerous blocks in the city with a specific and targeted focus on reducing violence. The presence of more officers in a limited area helped deter violence and allowed officers to develop relationships with residents. The result was a nearly 50% reduction in gun crimes and strong community support for the new initiative. A more rigorous evaluation of a similar program in St. Louis reported a two-third reduction in gun assaults.
Second, proactive policing should be community-centered. That means working with community leaders and individuals with lived experience of gun violence to design solutions that address the social and physical factors that allow violence to persist. For example, a lack of street lighting may encourage illicit activity, and correcting such an environmental problem has proved to be a simple but effective fix. Evidence shows that community problem-solving techniques can make police more effective at reducing violence while also improving police-community relationships.
Focused deterrence is another potentially effective strategy, which we’ve seen firsthand in our ongoing work in Baltimore and other cities. In those cities, police departments partnered with community-based organizations to deliver credible anti-violence messages that include swift penalties for gang members who continued shooting and offers of support to those who wanted it. The Black religious community and street outreach workers were integral in connecting gang members with social services. Boston’s well-known Operation Ceasefire resulted in a 63% reduction in youth homicides and became known as the “Boston Miracle.” The challenge is to sustain this multifaceted effort for an extended period.
Finally, devoting additional resources to investigating gun crimes can spark a virtuous cycle that helps get illegal guns off the street, restores community trust in policing and deters future crimes. Chicago’s clearance rate — the rate at which police departments solve homicides — has increased in recent years, yet half of all homicides still go unsolved, consistent with the national rate. Nonfatal shootings require specific attention: The national clearance rate is even lower for these shootings, largely due to the lower investigative priority they receive.
Low clearance rates are detrimental to reducing gun violence because they make it less likely that people committing gun crimes will be held accountable and that residents will turn to the police for justice. Our research in Boston demonstrates that enhanced investigative resources and improved management structures can increase homicide clearance rates in even the most challenging types of cases, such as gang and drug-related gun homicides.
Discussions on policing today are understandably fraught, but by learning from what works — and, importantly, from what doesn’t — Chicago has an opportunity to advance policing fairness and gun violence prevention at the same time. With proper implementation, good management and strong accountability mechanisms, these innovations can hold wrongdoers — officers or civilians — accountable and improve the quality of life across the city.
The stakes are too high to look the other way.
