2017
Gun Trace Report
Since 2013, the Chicago Police Department has recovered nearly 7,000 “crime guns” each year. For the purposes of this report, a crime gun refers to a firearm recovered by CPD that was illegally possessed, used, or suspected to be used in furtherance of a crime.
The overwhelming majority of these firearms were originally purchased outside of the city limits and brought into Chicago. So far in 2017, CPD is already on pace to exceed last year’s gun recoveries. It is self-evident that the availability of illegally circulated firearms in Chicago is directly connected to its deadly street violence. Simply put, each conflict becomes potentially more lethal due to easy access to a gun.
In an unfortunate but persistent reality, certain retailers and jurisdictions disproportionately account for the guns trafficked into Chicago that sustain its illegal gun market and associated violent crime.
Webinar: Overview of the City of Chicago’s Violence Reduction Dashboard
The Crime Lab hosted a webinar that explored the City of Chicago’s Violence Reduction Dashboard—a publicly available tool launched to support efforts to reduce gun violence through transparent, real-time data.
Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence
Crime Lab Pritzker Director Jens Ludwig authored a book that argues the lack of progress in reducing gun violence ultimately stems from our having misunderstood the nature of the problem, and that behavioral science gives us a new way to understand – and solve – gun violence in America.
Local Gun Violence Dashboards
Chicago’s Violence Reduction Dashboard, launched by the Crime Lab in 2021, is featured in a toolkit created by Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund as a part of its Gun Violence Data Fellowship.
Valuing the benefits of reducing firearm violence in the United States
This paper estimates the monetized value of the impact of reducing firearm violence and how that value is distributed across the population.
Latest Updates
Kelly Leonard: How improv can help police do their job
Kelly Leonard joins WGN’s John Williams to discuss The Second City’s partnership with the Crime Lab’s Policing Leadership Academy that’s using improv to help officers improve their communication skills.
Novel approaches can chip away at gun violence, and make a big difference
In an op-ed for the Chicago Sun-Times, Crime Lab Pritzker Director Jens Ludwig argues that when it comes to gun violence, we’ve been focused on the wrong solutions – a key insight from his new book, “Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence.”
New book challenges conventional wisdom on Chicago shootings
Crime Lab Pritzker Director Jens Ludwig joins WGN’s Mike Lowe for an interview to discuss his new book “Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence,” and how the book challenges our conventional wisdom about why shootings occur and how we can make progress on gun violence.
