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Rahm Emanuel Announces Run for Chicago Mayor, War on Gang Members

By Jeralyn

Rahm Emanuel made it official today. He's running for Mayor of Chicago. His website is up and running. His first action after setting up his FB page and website: embarking on "listening tour" across Chicago.

Who are among Rahm's first intended victims?

To be the city we want to be, we can't have gangbangers taking the lives of our schoolchildren.

Gang leaders don't target children, nor do they condone their killing, according to Tio Hardiman, director of CeaseFire Illinois, which works to prevent neighborhood violence. He probably knows a lot more about the subject than Rahm.

I'd like to hear Rahm promise some innovative juvenile justice programs and programs designed to assist at-risk kids in finding alternatives to gangs. Instead, he's promising more of a crackdown, which is as sure to fail as the war on drugs.

Here's Rahm's stance on issues while in Congress. [More...]

A little more on CeaseFire, from the New York Times:

CeaseFire, a program that treats street shootings as an epidemic similar to an outbreak of the flu, is one such unconventional approach. The group employs community members as intelligence sources on brewing conflicts. Before a dispute can erupt into violence, CeaseFire dispatches resolution specialists to intervene and help ease tensions.

The CeaseFire program was recently called a national model for violence reduction by the Department of Justice. Yet inconsistent state and local financial support has blunted the group’s impact, and low funding levels have limited the program’s use to just a handful of Chicago neighborhoods.

What should Rahm be looking at? Things like Youth PROMISE Action and support for the Youth PROMISE Act (Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education Act):

The Youth PROMISE Act (HR 1064/S 435) is bipartisan legislation that will give our communities the support and funding they need to effectively address youth violence issues. By specifically focusing on violence prevention and intervention strategies, this bill ensures we are funding programs that save lives and give every young person the opportunity to meet his or her potential.

Here's a summary of the bill. Among the bill's findings:

(4) Investment in prevention and intervention programs for children and youth, including quality early childhood programs, comprehensive evidence-based school, after school, and summer school programs, mentoring programs, mental health and treatment programs, evidence-based job training programs, and alternative intervention programs, has been shown to lead to decreased youth arrests, decreased delinquency, lower recidivism, and greater financial savings from an educational, economic, social, and criminal justice perspective.

Introduced in 2009 by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), the bill has 235 co-sponsors. Rahm is dangerously out of touch on this issue. The last thing Chicago needs is another crime-warrior.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 03, 2010 (boomark / email).