Increase in Shootings after CeaseFire Funding is Interrupted

In August 2007, CeaseFire lost funding from the state of Illinois due to a veto from Governor Blagojevich and had to shut down most of its outreach program in Chicago. While this was a tragedy for the communities that had come to embrace CeaseFire, it offered an opportunity to examine the effectiveness of CeaseFire from a different perspective. The following charts illustrate the increase in shootings that occurred in 2007-2008.

 

This first chart shows that shootings were decreasing in Chicago before CeaseFire activity was interrupted. After the interruption, this trend reversed and shootings increased sharply.

 

This second chart illustrates this reversing of the trend as it unfolded over the course of 21 months. From January to August 2007, shootings were on a pretty consistant trend downward, a trend that had started to occur as early as 2001. In September 2007, the same month that CeaseFire activity was interrupted, shootings increased. Since Spetember 2007, shootings have increased every month except one.

 

Looking specifically at districts in which CeaseFire worked, shootings increased in almost every former CeaseFire district and most of the increase that occurred in Chicago occurred in the districts that used to have a CeaseFire program. The one district that did have a substantial decrease is a district in which CeaseFire is still active.

 

The map below shows which districts had increases and where CeaseFire used to work. It illustrates that the increases in shootings occurred where CeaseFire activity was interrupted. Either small increases or decreases occurred in areas that never had CeaseFire. Areas that still have CeaseFire had decreases in shootings.