Capacity Building
We help public safety partners maximize their impact by providing technical assistance and evidence-based recommendations to inform program design, implementation, and scaling.
Gun violence can’t be solved by research alone – it takes government agencies, community-based organizations, and community members working together to put research findings into practice. That’s why the Crime Lab partners with agencies and organizations to build their capacity by embedding analysts in-house, conducting independent project evaluations, and providing data-driven tools and recommendations.
Latest Updates
A History of Violence
Chicago Magazine’s Paula Kamen profiles Crime Lab Pritzker Director Jens Ludwig to discuss his new book, “Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence,” which offers social policy strategies for creating safer communities.

Editorial: A recognition that good policing starts from the top
The Crain’s Editorial Board highlights a $15 million gift from the Sue Ling Gin Foundation to support the Crime Lab in adapting its Policing Leadership Academy to provide management training to the Chicago Police Department’s leadership ranks.

Jens Ludwig: The unforgiving origins of Chicago gun violence
Regular Tribune Opinion contributor Jens Ludwig, Pritzker director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, has a new book, “Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence,” to be published April 21 by the University of Chicago Press. In this exclusive, lightly edited extract from Chapter One, Ludwig explores what caused three lives of young Chicagoans to change forever.
