BCJI in Action

SITE OVERVIEW  ♦  CHICAGO | ILLINOIS

Neighborhood Profile 

Like many urban communities, Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood suffers from the impact of white flight and disinvestment. In 1950, 11 percent of Englewood’s residents were African Americans; twenty years later that number stood at 96 percent. As major retailers and job opportunities left the community, Englewood’s economic growth began to decline and violent crimes and property crimes spiraled out of control, leading to residential flight. Homes and other buildings were abandoned or torched, with entire blocks left vacant. By 2000, Englewood’s population, which had been as high as 90,000 in the early 20^th century, was 40,000.

Today, Englewood and the adjacent West Englewood community have an unemployment rate of 27 percent. In 2010, 46 percent of Englewood residents and 38 percent of West Englewood residents lived below the poverty line and 80 percent of children under 18 years old lived in households that receive public assistance. The neighborhood is designated a “blighted area” because of code violations, deterioration and other factors, and 15 of Englewood’s 23 public schools are rated low performing or failing by Chicago Public Schools.

Englewood ranked 10th among Chicago’s 77 community areas for violent crime reports in 2016, with 889 violent crimes, including robbery, battery, assault, homicide and sexual assault. The Chicago Police Department blames the surge in violence on gang members and illegal guns, and residents say they are afraid to report crimes because of potential gang involvement. The BCJI program in Englewood will focus on Englewood Beat 725, a "violent crime hot spot” in the community.

Planning Process

The Englewood Quality of Life Taskforce is composed of community organizations, local law enforcement, alderman, educators, businesses and residents. Teamwork Englewood and its cross-sector partners in the public safety committee have three primary goals:

Improve public safety by including the use of advanced technologies. The BCJI program will equip law enforcement with smart phones and the “shot spotter” application and upgrade district police station situation room with social media and other data intel capabilities. The team will identify crime hot spots that demonstrate varied types of crimes and time periods

Address social impacts by leveraging community resources. The team will build on and identify new strategic plans or community collaborations related to crime issues and build capacity in the community to engage leadership and community residents. The research partner Dr. Troy Harden and others will assess implementation outcomes and develop a sustainable plan, leveraging other federal, state and local funding streams.

Develop and implement short- and long-term action plans for community revitalization and sustainability. The team will expand the existing Quality of Life Planning committee with law enforcement and criminal justice partners, focusing specifically on community safety and crime prevention initiatives. The 7th District Police Department, project partners and Harden will collaborate to analyze crime drivers in hot spots, assess needs, and identify resources, and the BCJI team will develop strategies to address crime drivers with enforcement, prevention, intervention and treatment.

Other Key Partners

Chicago Police Department 7th District, Englewood Quality of Life Task Force: Public Safety Champions

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