Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116800

Charlie Ransford, MA, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1603 W. Taylor, Chicago, IL 60612, (312) 413-4364, ransford@uic.edu, Rachel Johnston, Research and Development Division, Chicago Police Department, 3510 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60653, Elena D. Quintana, PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, 1603 W. Taylor (M/C 923), Chicago, IL 60612, and Gary Slutkin, MD, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago Project for Violence Prevention/CeaseFire, 1603 W. Taylor, Chicago, IL 60612.

In 2003, Chicago had the highest rate of homicides for large cities in the nation recording 599 homicides. In 2004, the number of homicides in Chicago declined by 25% for a total 448 homicides. While violence declined in the nation in the mid 1990's, trends are now much flatter and the 25% decline in Chicago is substantially larger than declines experienced in other areas of the country last year. Several factors appear to have played a role in this decline. More focused and intense police activity as well as a city-wide CeaseFire Campaign were likely the most relevant contributors to the decline. Police activities included weekly deployment efforts focused on shootings, special missions from gang task forces, cameras installed in strategic locations, and selected federal prosecutions. The CeaseFire campaign targeted specific high-risk communities with 70 outreach workers who work with high risk youth, community mobilization and responses to each shooting, and intensive public education messaging efforts. Other factors that may have had an effect on the number of homicides will be examined such as gentrification and employment.

Learning Objectives:

• • Understand the factors that lead to the decrease in shootings and killings in Chicago.
• • Describe methods for decreasing shootings and killings in violent communities.

Keywords: Violence, Homicide

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.