Reducing Gun Violence, Advancing Justice
Community Safety Leadership Academies
The Community Safety Leadership Academies, composed of the Policing Leadership Academy and Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy, aim to rigorously train the next generation of policing and community violence intervention leaders.
Situational Decision-Making (Sit-D)
The Crime Lab and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) partnered to create and evaluate a behavioral science-informed training that helps improve officer decision-making in ambiguous, high-stress situations.
The Crime Lab designs, tests, and scales data-driven innovations to improve the public sector’s response to the dual challenges of America’s gun violence crisis and a criminal justice system that is not truly just.
Given its scale, when it comes to gun violence and the criminal justice system, the government can cause the most harm from its failure–or have the greatest positive impact. That’s why working with public sector agencies to improve their response is central to the Crime Lab’s work: it’s the best way to make progress at scale.
Topics
Our goal is to have an outsized impact on our streets, in our courts, and across our justice system to support neighborhoods disproportionately suffering from these crises. That’s why the Crime Lab measures success in terms of real-world results.
Community Violence Intervention
Through a combination of street outreach by credible messengers and behavioral science-informed interventions, community violence intervention (CVI) programs help de-escalate stressful situations before they lead to violence.
Criminal Justice Reform
We're advancing long overdue reforms to reduce the harms of America's broken criminal justice system.
Gun Violence
In cities across America, communities face high rates of gun violence and significant harm caused by the criminal justice system – both of which disproportionately impact communities of color.
Policing
If we want to address America’s gun violence epidemic and save lives today, fair and effective policing is essential. But for too many communities, we are failing to deliver that kind of policing.
Youth Violence
Gun violence is the leading cause of death for young people in America. But youth violence interventions can help keep kids safe and reach those who are the hardest to reach.
Latest Updates
Behavioral Science-Based Police Training Program Led to Drops in Use of Force, Discretionary Arrests in Chicago: Study
This article by WTTW’s Matt Masterson features the Crime Lab’s study of Situational Decision-making (Sit-D), a behavioral science-informed police training program that led to fewer uses of force and discretionary arrests.
University of Chicago launches training academy for violence prevention workers: ‘You’re made to make history’
This piece highlights the launch of the Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy, a six-month program aimed at providing crucial management training to anti-violence workers from 21 cities across the country.
UChicago Launches Initiative to Help Combat Gun Violence Across America
In this piece, Tacuma Roeback, Managing Editor of the Chicago Defender writes about the launch of the Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy with remarks by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, former acting Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department Charlie Beck, and CVILA Director Chico Tillmon.