Jobs. Block Clubs. Investment: How Chicagoans are Interrupting Violence at its Roots

The causes and solutions to gun violence are difficult to quantify—or control. One thing is clear: gun violence is highest in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. Organizers in the hardest-hit communities like Garfield Park say tackling poverty is the only way to create lasting change.

by Jim Daley May 27, 2025March 18, 2026

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Jobs. Block Clubs. Investment: How Chicagoans are Interrupting Violence at its Roots

by Jim Daley, Illinois Answers Project
May 27, 2025

<h1>Jobs. Block Clubs. Investment: How Chicagoans are Interrupting Violence at its Roots</h1>
<p class="byline">by Jim Daley, Illinois Answers Project <br />May 27, 2025</p>
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Tagged: Employment, West Side, Crime, Making it in Chicago, Chicago, Violence, Gun violence, shootings, garfield park, Mayor Brandon Johnson, Violence Interrupters, Block Club

Jim DaleyState Investigations Editor

jdaley@bettergov.org

Jim Daley is the State Investigations Editor of the Illinois Answers Project. Previously, he was the investigations editor at the South Side Weekly, and the news editor at The TRiiBE and the Chicago Reader before that. His investigations have won multiple awards, including a Peter Lisagor award for his reporting on police surveillance of activists during the 2020 George Floyd protests and a Sarah Brown Boyden award he shared for a year-long investigation of ShotSpotter's business practices and effectiveness. He earned a Bachelor's of Science in biology from the University of Illinois at Chicago and worked in life-sciences laboratories for several years before becoming a journalist. He was born and raised on Chicago's South Side.

More by Jim Daley