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Chicago Council of Lawyers and Chicago Appleseed are happy to share The Network’s campaign to fund domestic and sexual violence services. The Network has released a comprehensive report calling for the reallocation of $35-million from the budget of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to community services focused on preventing gender-based violence and rehabilitating people on both sides of the issue.

The report looks, specifically, at the unbalanced investment demonstrated by the Chicago Police Department’s portion of the City’s operating budget. The police department’s budget ($1,762,078,349 for 2020) is 236-times more than what the City of Chicago devotes to domestic violence services through the Department of Family & Support Services (DFSS), according to The Network’s proposal; the $35-million figure represents just 7-days of CPD’s yearly budget. The prioritization of punishment over justice is just one of the myriad ways our government and courts – especially criminal courts – perpetuate cycles of poverty and incarceration.

Chicago Appleseed and the Council believe that to ensure accessible justice for all people – regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender, ability, or socioeconomic status – our local, state, and federal systems must to make intentional, structural changes that move toward radical justice system reinvestment. We find The Network’s plan lays out a compelling case for reinvestment in non-police services to better meet the needs of community members.

The report centers community requests for reopening schools and mental health centers and funding for crisis intervention, recovery services, and job and housing programs. It advocates an approach to address domestic and sexual violence that fits into justice reinvestment priorities and requests a specific line item in the City’s budget for gender-based violence prevention and intervention.

The Network’s request reflects a growing demand for community-based resources rather than a break with existing partnerships. Despite the domestic violence advocacy community’s history of partnership with courts and law enforcement to address gender-based violence, The Network understands that community-based intervention and education services are the only way to prevent violence—and are fundamentally outside the training and scope of police forces as presently organized.

The report highlights the problems inherent to police implicit bias and de-escalation training and the impossibility of body cameras or other technology as the means of improve outcomes when using police for violence prevention, and looks at a Minnesota study documenting these failures. Since Minnesota implemented similar reforms in 2015, police in the state have continued to use excessive force (with 11,500 instances recorded since)—primarily against Black people (in nearly 6,650 cases, 60% of all excessive force incidences, the victim of police violence was Black).

Achieving holistic, collaborative justice reinvestment requires more than developing data-based solutions to address discriminatory justice system policies and court practices – it necessarily includes working, also, to change a culture that has historically propagated racial, gender, and economic inequity. The only way to achieve justice for all in any tangible way is by intentionally reallocating funds from punitive practices that disproportionately harm people overly represented in the system, to anti-racist programs – such as domestic violence rehabilitation and prevention; pre-arrest diversion; restorative justice and community-based treatment courts; and other methods that prioritize community wellbeing.

Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers are proud to support The Network’s push to re-envision public safety and community wellbeing by reallocating funds toward innovative means of violence prevention. We hope you will join us in The Network’s call to reallocate and reinvest in community resources to prevent and address gender-based and sexual violence. Sign the petition here.