Esther Franco-Payne –

Workers with Flatlining Violence Inspires Peace are honored during the Chicago CRED Community Violence Interruption 2024 Convening on Feb. 1, 2024, at the South Shore Cultural Center in Chicago. (Vincent Alban/baiduhai)

Civic leaders: Smart investments in public safety are beginning to pay off. Just look at the data.

December 4, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.

Community violence intervention programs are in 37 of Chicago’s 77 communities and are helping reduce arrests and shootings.

Participants talk in a group therapy session July 20, 2023, that is a part of a cognitive behavioral intervention program at READI Chicago.

Esther Franco-Payne and Gillian Darlow: It’s time to bring community violence intervention to scale in Chicago

July 30, 2023 at 5:00 a.m.

What will it take for Chicago to become the safest big city in the country? As members of Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities — a funder coalition focused on...

Razor wire greets anyone trying make it over an inside perimeter fence of the Tamms Correctional Center on Feb. 13, 2009, in Tamms, Ill.

Overcrowding our prisons is a failed policy

November 3, 2021 at 8:00 p.m.

The Tribune's new Plan of Chicago series has pointed to the complex underlying social causes of violence: poverty, poor education, segregated housing and unemployment. Rampant violence is a scourge on...

Overcrowding our prisons is a failed policy

December 23, 2018 at 3:33 p.m.

The Tribune's new Plan of Chicago series has pointed to the complex underlying social causes of violence: poverty, poor education, segregated housing and unemployment. Rampant violence is a scourge on...

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