The 21st Show

How did a state funding cut-off affect youth homicides?

Produced by Brian Mackey and Anna Casey
 

Reginald Hardwick/Illinois Newsroom

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Illinois went two years without a full budget. Thanks to the order of a county judge in the Metro East part of the state, state employees got paid. But those agencies with whom Illinois contracts for social services — like preventing violence, and addressing trauma — they did not get paid. Many had to cut programs and staff as a result. All that, in turn, seems to have been a big factor in a spike in homicides in Chicago — which is the subject of a recent report from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. It suggests a correlation between the state’s two-year budget impasse and a spike in young people being murdered in 2016. We were joined by the study's author and the CEO of an Illinois anti-violence group to talk about her research and its implications.

GUEST: 

Maryann Mason, PhD

Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University | Director, Illinois Violent Death Reporting System Director, Illinois Statewide Drug Overdose Reporting System | Faculty Associate, Institute for Policy Research

Andrea Durbin

CEO, Illinois Collaboration on Youth

 

 

Prepared for web by Owen Henderson

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