PUBLIC SAFETY

We can't arrest our way out of every problem, but we also can't ignore violent crime and hope it disappears. Chicago needs a public safety strategy that recognizes both realities.

Today, we're asking too much of a police department that isn't organized as effectively as it could be, while too many neighborhoods still lack the mental health care, opportunity, and violence prevention resources that stop crime before it starts. My plan tackles both problems at once: reform how we keep Chicago safe and make sustained investments that address the root causes of violence so fewer people become victims in the first place.

Reform How We Keep Chicago Safe

Every Chicagoan deserves to feel safe, whether they're walking to the train, waiting for the bus, sitting on their front porch, or letting their kids play outside. That shouldn't depend on your ZIP code, your race, or your income. Public safety and police accountability are not competing values. Safe neighborhoods require both, and too many Chicagoans today feel like they have neither.

The Chicago Police Department is by far the city's largest department, accounting for 38% of the city's workforce and one-third of the city's $6 billion corporate fund. Public safety is one of local government's most important responsibilities and it has a sacred obligation to deliver results. We need a smarter, more accountable public safety system that keeps every neighborhood safe.

• Put officers back on the street. An independent Workforce Allocation Study commissioned by the City found that more than 600 sworn officers are doing work that doesn't require a badge. Like the EY report on the city's finances, taxpayers already paid for a roadmap to solve a real problem. We’ll stop letting studies gather dust and start implementing solutions we’ve already been presented with. We’ll re-civilianize those positions and return sworn officers to patrol, investigations, and neighborhood policing while avoiding the mistakes that caused previous civilianization efforts to stall. Hiring 1,000 new officers, as some of my opponents have pledged to do, would take significantly more time and money. We should start, rather, by utilizing the talent we already have, that is being misallocated.

• Deploy officers where they're needed most. Adopt a transparent staffing formula that guarantees every district a minimum level of service while directing additional officers to the neighborhoods, days, and hours with the greatest violence and emergency workload. Today, 14% of shootings occur between midnight and 5:00 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, but only 3.8% of patrol hours overlap with that time; and 5% of Chicago blocks are the locale of over 25% of homicides and gun violence. One analysis found the 20th District (Uptown, Lincoln Square, North Center, and Ravenswood) had 17 times more officers per homicide than the 3rd District (Grand Crossing, Greater Grand Crossing, and South Shore), creating an uneven deployment system that isn't fair to officers or the neighborhoods they serve.

• Implement Strict Overtime and Fiscal Auditing. CPD routinely overspends its allocated funds, exhausting nearly 70% of its massive $200 million overtime budget within the first six months of the year. Independent organizations like the Civic Federation recommend a comprehensive forensic audit of police scheduling and a hard cap on overtime to prevent officer burnout and redirect millions back into community investments. I would adopt that recommendation on Day 1. 

• Balance experience across the city. No neighborhood should be policed primarily by rookie officers. Too often, we send our youngest and least experienced officers into Chicago's most challenging districts with little knowledge of the community they'll serve. That's unfair to residents and unfair to the officers themselves. We'll pair new officers with experienced mentors, provide robust neighborhood and cultural training before deployment, and create incentives for seasoned officers to serve in high-need districts.

• Build neighborhood policing. You can't solve homicides if witnesses don't trust you enough to talk to you. Officers need time to build relationships, understand a neighborhood's history and challenges, and become part of the community they serve instead of constantly rotating through it. Stable assignments and stronger community connections means our officers are safer, investigations more successful, and neighborhoods are stronger.

• Build a safer, smarter crisis response system. Expand CARE and other alternative response programs so mental health professionals, not police officers, respond to appropriate behavioral health and low-risk calls. We'll fully staff the program, integrate it directly into the OEMC 911 and 311 dispatch system, and ensure CARE teams are available when people actually need them, not just during limited business hours. Mental health crises don't keep office hours, and neither should our response. When CARE was separated from CPD's dispatch workflow without a fully integrated replacement, response calls dropped by nearly 70%, leaving too many people in crisis without the help they needed. We'll fix the bureaucratic failures that sidelined the program through better coordination across departments and a dispatch system that gets the right responders to the right call the first time.

• Take better care of the officers protecting our neighborhoods. CPD officers die by suicide at a rate much higher than the national law enforcement average, while Chicago also continues to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on police misconduct settlements. Both are signs that we're not doing enough to support, train, and care for the people we ask to protect our city. We'll expand confidential counseling, peer support, dedicated wellness centers, and recovery time after traumatic incidents while continuing to divert behavioral health calls through CARE. Healthier officers are more likely to stay on the job, make better decisions under pressure, build stronger relationships with the communities they serve, identify colleagues who need support before problems escalate, and reduce costly overtime, misconduct, and lawsuit payouts.

• Measure safety, not police activity. The goal isn’t more arrests, it’s effective policing that solves crimes and holds the people committing them accountable. Hold CPD leadership accountable for fewer shootings, faster response times, more crimes solved, and stronger community trust, not simply more stops or arrests.

• Make public safety progress more transparent. Publish district-by-district staffing, deployment, overtime, and performance data, require quarterly City Council oversight hearings, and independently evaluate whether these reforms are making Chicago safer.

• Consolidate police oversight. Chicago has eight overlapping "police accountability" bodies yet the city continues to pay out millions in police misconduct lawsuits every year and is only at 9% compliance with consent decree. Chicago should emulate Los Angeles and consolidate to a single, empowered police oversight body elected by Chicagoans.

• Reach people before violence reaches them. Research consistently shows that a very small number of people are at the highest risk of becoming involved in gun violence, either as victims or perpetrators. We'll bring together violence interrupters, community organizations, mental health providers, and law enforcement to identify those at greatest risk, connect them with meaningful opportunities and support, and hold accountable those who continue committing violent crimes.

• Invest in what already works. Chicago already has nationally recognized violence interruption programs but they’re held back from scaling their work because they are not holistically integrated into City Hall’s overall public safety plan. We'll integrate and expand the organizations with proven results, require measurable outcomes for every program receiving taxpayer dollars, and stop constantly reinventing the wheel.

• Give young people something to run toward. We’ll provide community activities that young people actually enjoy while also expanding summer jobs, apprenticeships, after-school programs, paid internships, mentoring, and career pathways in the neighborhoods experiencing the highest rates of violence because prevention starts long before someone picks up a gun.

• Bring mental health care back to the neighborhoods that lost it. When the City closed neighborhood mental health clinics, too many communities were left without accessible care. We'll expand community mental health services by opening clinics in existing public buildings like libraries, health centers, and other city-owned spaces, bringing crisis care, addiction treatment, trauma services, and counseling back into the neighborhoods that need them most.

• Teach conflict resolution before conflict becomes violence. Expand Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, trauma-informed counseling, and restorative justice by partnering with CPS, the Park District, neighborhood organizations, hospitals, and reentry programs. By connecting young people identified through schools, hospitals, violence intervention organizations, and diversion programs with trained counselors and mentors before a crisis escalates, we can give them the tools to resolve conflict without violence.

• Help people coming home succeed. Too many returning residents re-enter our communities without stable housing, employment, identification, or access to treatment. We'll partner with Cook County, the Illinois Department of Corrections, community colleges, labor unions, and proven nonprofit providers like IMAN and PBMR to begin reentry planning before release, connecting people to housing, job training, mental health care, addiction treatment, and employment so they return to our neighborhoods with a real opportunity instead of a revolving door back into the justice system.

• Stop retaliation before it starts. Expand hospital-based violence intervention programs so every shooting victim is connected with trained counselors and outreach workers before leaving the hospital, reducing repeat victimization and retaliatory violence.

• Restore neighborhoods alongside public safety. Research shows that improving lighting, cleaning vacant lots, securing abandoned buildings, and maintaining public spaces can reduce violent crime. We'll invest in the neighborhoods experiencing the greatest violence while creating safer, healthier places to live.

• Target opportunity where violence is greatest. Long-term public safety requires long-term economic opportunity. We'll prioritize workforce development, affordable housing, neighborhood investment, and small business support in communities experiencing the highest levels of violence, recognizing that investments have the greatest impact when they're targeted to the communities that need them most.

• Measure success by lives saved. Hold every violence prevention strategy accountable for fewer shootings, fewer homicides, fewer repeat victims, and stronger neighborhoods through regular public reporting and independent evaluation.