>> President Trump's deployment of troops in Washington, D.C., may be making its way to Chicago.

He's threatening to deploy the National Guard here saying crime is out of control and that he doesn't believe reports that violence is down.

Despite statistics to the contrary here to talk about what we really know about crime trends as well as the most effective ways to spend public funds to increase public safety.

We're joined by Aaron Gottlieb, who runs the resource Allocation Lab, which studies the best ways to deploy public resources to affect public safety.

He's an associate professor at the University of Chicago.

Catherine Bocanegra assistant professor at University of Illinois-Chicago who works in the areas of community violence, prevention and criminal justice reform.

David Loyola University, Chicago professor of criminal justice and criminology, who is co-director of Loyola's Interdisciplinary Center for Criminal Justice Research and joining us via zoom from the nation's capital is Michael Nigro, senior fellow for economic opportunity at the Center for American Progress, who was an aide to President Biden.

Governor Pritzker and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

We should mention we did invite the Chicago Police Department to join our discussion this evening.

But they declined.

I'm thinks I'm thankful to deport you for joining us.

So we mentioned the data that the president says he does not believe Chicago police data shows that compared to last year a violent crime in the city is down.

22% compared to last year.

There have been 36%.

Fewer shootings and homicides are also down.

32%.

There have been some other crimes that have fallen as well.

David Olson, over to you first.

President Trump, as we said, he's down to these crimes stats is there.

How do you make the case?

How does one make the case that, you know, for Chicago being in a state of emergency to warrant the deployment of troops that he is calling for.

And I think with with crime statistics.

>> There's a lot of different ways that they can be interpreted.

I The idea the crime is up is the first place to start is crime up.

The statistics from the Chicago Police Department indicate that they're not.

But the important thing about looking at crime and levels of crime, is even if crime is down at the public's perception is such that it doesn't then it may not matter, right, that the public still thinks it's it's going up or that it to the high level.

Obviously public concern is isn't swayed by statistics.

suggests otherwise.

I think in the case of Chicago and Illinois, one of the benefits is for the most serious crimes like homicides and shootings and things like that.

Those crimes tend to get reported the most by the public.

But we also have other sources of information we can look at to gauge whether or not those trends are consistent.

So not only can we look at the Chicago Police Department's figures, I'm shootings and homicides.

We can look to the Department of the Illinois Department of Public Health, the tracks, emergency room admissions for shootings as an example, the drop in shootings treated in emergency rooms is exactly the same size of the drop in shootings that Chicago Police Department is reporting.

So when we have the benefit of multiple sources of information and they all point to the same thing they're collected by different levels of government, different different agencies that gives us a little bit more reassurance that these figures are accurate.

The other thing is what's happening in Chicago is happening in a lot of a lot of other large cities.

Rights was not just Chicago.

The singer dropped in homicide and shooting other large cities.

So I think that's one thing that's important.

And the other thing that I think we're at a unique point in history for is.

We know how much crime occurred in Chicago last month when I started my career, we would know how much crime there was this year, 3 years from now, right?

Because it was all manual.

It took a long time with some of the data that wasn't computers, ation of records.

So historically elected officials can say crime was going up or going down.

There was no there was no way to ever verify or ascertain whether or not that was accurate but say it's a little bit different.

So the data that we have now is much more reliable than the data we might have had 15 to 20 years ago that much more timely.

Absolutely.

>> Go ahead, Catherine.

And I would just like to build on what Dave said in that.

Chicago's traditionally had a public safety gap in that the rates of violence.

Victimization across communities has been an equal.

The burden of violence and victimization.

The city has been borne by a black and Latino communities.

And so when you look at those aggregate statistics that 30% or something reduction in shootings and homicides, I think it's important to ask the question if those who are at the epicenter of violence who feel that most acutely, if they are experiencing those reductions and so Chicago has a really great tool.

The violence reduction dashboard.

I encourage everyone to check it out.

And earlier today I looked at the shooting and homicide rates in the communities that have traditionally been framed as having the highest rates of violence like Austin roles in the Little Village and they looked at the reductions in if they compare if they're on par with the average that you just stated or if there have been even greater gains in public safety and then the communities that have traditionally been disproportionately burdened with violence and victimization.

We're seeing if the same, the average amount of reductions in shootings and homicides, if not greater gains in public safety.

All right.

So greater reductions in shootings and homicides.

So those who traditionally been harmed the most are experiencing the greatest gains in safety.

Ok, that's an important point.

Thank you for mentioning that, So, Aaron, what does the evidence show are the outcomes of having increased law enforcement presence?

And to be clear National Guard, they are not law enforcement.

they serve different function.

Yeah.

So I mean, I so.

In general.

>> With law enforcement there is evidence that increased law enforcement does lead to reductions in crime but off in the way the evidence work says We don't count account for the possible trade offs, right?

So they're limited local government resources better spent.

So if you're just looking at what's the impact of adding one police officer without considering what is being taken away, you might find one thing, but in the study I just conducted looking at the 50 most populous counties in the Great Lakes region which equates to having 200,000 people or more.

What I found with colleagues was that when you reallocate resources away from the criminal legal system towards other services.

You don't see any change in the homicide rate.

What you do see is a significant reduction in the suicide rate.

So one and I'm happy to talk about that more one thing that I think is critical.

When we talk about public safety, often only think about crime and that is really important.

Crime is critical.

But I would argue that it's important to take a holistic view of public safety and well-being and to think about things like health, mental health educational outcomes, socioeconomic outcomes, cetera.

So from my perspective, when we think about how we invest resources, we should be thinking about probably should also be thinking about those other things.

Of course.

>> The Catherine, one of the strategy is just to go ahead and get this out there.

One of the strategies that we know of that work to reduce crime.

Sure.

So just building off of what doctor Gottlieb I think a holistic definition or approach to safety.

>> Expands upon the traditional notion of policing and punishment.

a holistic, comprehensive approach to safety includes investing in community violence, intervention programs it includes economic development, jobs and housing that creates thriving business is that reduces family instability in desperation and it includes a public health approach in trauma recovery services that get at the root causes of violence in communities.

So that's what a holistic definition looks like.

Now.

I we actually can put a dollar amount on public safety, public safety issues that are being highlighted in the media right now.

Labor economists have calculated the average cost for a shooting in a homicide in Chicago.

Right?

They estimate this is based on a randomized controlled trial of the ready Chicago model.

All At the Heartland Alliance, Yes, Heartland Alliance of Community Violence, Intervention Initiative.

So labor economists estimated that a shooting costs upward around $180,000 in a homicide cost taxpayers around upwards of $900,000.

And those costs come in the victim caso like the medical bills, emergency response.

Long-term health care, low-cost loan loss, income for families and the trauma that occurs.

But it also is a cost of that is associated.

The person who caused the harm.

All right.

So the court costs that prison costs lost productivity people are incarcerated.

When we invest in community-based strategies such as the evidence base ready, Chicago model there is for every one dollar invested in the community a strategy targeting those high-risk individuals.

Labor economists event have estimated a 40 $18 return on investment in those avoided costs.

Okay.

I thank you for the numbers.

Cause that that says something, doesn't it?

then there's the cost of deploying National Guard troops.

>> Which Michael Nigro that you've got some information on that for us.

What what we know about the cost of the direct cost of deploying National Guard troops to a city like Chicago.

>> Well, we have a laboratory in Washington, D.C., right now and we had a similar deployment to Los Angeles earlier this year.

there's you know, I think there's 2 important things think about economic development and a strong economy.

That's business community consumers.

They look for a public safety, of course, which we're talking about here, but also stability and predictability in in policymaking in what the administration is doing right now is is not going to contribute to public safety based what we've seen in Washington, where we have police officer at the National Guardsman in the tourist areas in the National Mall in Georgetown by the Nationals Park Baseball Stadium and not in the communities where there's actually a crime issue.

And then while that's happening, business resident business foot traffic.

retailers are reporting less foot traffic restaurant reservations are quite down.

We're quite down.

In the first week.

They started to rebound a bit this week.

as it was restaurant week this past week.

But we're seeing some early bad indicators of this activity and the cost of this.

What we don't yet know the cost Washington a the 60 day deployment in the state of California in Los Angeles.

and it was 5,000 National Guardsmen for for 60 Days.

It was more than 130 million dollars, which is a big public expenditure for something that according to Governor Newsom, they released some information as well as a study by the University of California.

Merced said they found that attendance at work was down 3% since the deployment the combination of the deployment to LA as well as other immigration policies set to shrink the California economy by about 300 billion dollars.

That's about 5%.

The California economy.

so if you look Washington, D.C., where folks have been deterred from going to restaurants.

I'm going to retailers.

You look at the effects in California.

It's not really looking like a good use of public money given the economic impacts, people like certainty, businesses like certainty.

And if the president is talking about deploying soldiers to a major American city for an undetermined amount of time and not being clear how those soldiers are going to interact with the population.

A lot of people are going to just to skip out on coming into the city for a meal or for show.

There may be conventions, business trade groups that decide to to not to a convention or to cancel the convention because they're uncertain about whether the commute for the travels going to be easy or they're going to be demonstrations.

And so this is just creating a good bit of uncertainty for the business community and for consumers.

And that's just not a good recipe.

for the economic success of the city.

And it's not really that's really justify could end up being hundreds of millions of dollars at the beginning in in taxpayer cost, let alone.

It just becomes a new way of doing business where we're looking at 3 years of this that you're talking about billions or 10's of billions.

>> Reports in and it sounds like as you're saying, there's, of course, the direct cost of deploying a soldier's Guardsmen and women.

But then there's also the indirect costs and the impact it has on businesses around the area and in the city.

But, you know, we mentioned earlier in the show, the president referring to the city of Chicago as a quote, killing Here's a little bit more of what the president said about Chicago in the Oval Office today.

>> should be Chicago because as you all know, Chicago is a killing field right now.

And they don't acknowledge it.

And they we don't freedom Freedom.

He's a dictator.

He's Lot of people are saying maybe like addicted.

I don't like it.

Take I'm not a dictator.

I'm man with great common sense and smart person.

>> David about crime statistics and trends in their calculation.

How accurate a does that day to give to the complexity of crime in the city of Chicago?

I think it doesn't always give a good sense of the nature of crime.

The crime that were most fixated on obviously is the most serious crime.

That's that's homicide.

It.

It's also the best measured.

It's also the measure that we have.

The most confidence is is accurate, but most crime is not violent.

Most crime is is minor crime.

Oftentimes not even resulting in people calling the police because it's >> not serious, right?

There's no injury.

There's no there's no threat.

So I think.

The challenges that from the public's standpoint, there's only one type of crime never hear about.

All right.

It's the most serious.

It's what it's what is the headlines.

And oftentimes for a lot of people, it's that crime that shapes their understanding of what crime.

It's right.

So that if they hear that someone was accused of a crime wasn't sentenced to prison.

They're equating that to the murder cases, right?

Win.

It might be a simple drug possession case.

might be a simple, theft That's one of the challenges.

Obviously the crime that people are most concerned about is what gets the most attention.

But oftentimes it's that crime that creates people's perception of what crime is and how we should respond to crime is based on what they perceive.

Prime And that's the most serious.

And that's what over the last 30 or 40 years as the Publix view of Crime equates of the most serious, they historically demand for more and more punitive policies which trickles down to people charged with.

Drug possession and right, baby with a hose to the most serious crimes, the least and no one on a number of other states over the last 15 to 20 years.

We really started to better understand one.

What is the nature of crime and what is the most effective response to it?

You know, the things that Katherine described are the things that occur outside of the justice system.

may be much more efficient, use of resources.

And we've seen that.

Illinois that were what world relying less on prison in Illinois as a response to crime.

And it's not just a Chicago approach or or, you know, the former states attorneys approach can FOX.

It's annoyed that prosecutors are using prison less white because they realize that prison for someone charged with drug possession and theft.

Is inefficient.

It's a lot of money and it doesn't address and that fraud and it's been a big shift.

It's taken a couple of a couple, 2, 3, to get to that for, you know, law enforcement officials to start to shift their thinking.

>> Erin, should officials be completely you or considering it completely different funding model to approach public safety and what would that look like?

>> So that's a great question thought.

I mean, I think.

Right we've done things a certain Basically forever a long time.

then like way we've approached addressing.

Crime has been through punishment and through policing.

I do think that there's increasingly good evidence that we would be well served, reallocating some of those resources to the types of community investment community vestments that Katherine is talking about.

I do think that's a process that will take a lot of time.

And it's something that we need to go.

But about incrementally because we also the infrastructure in place to make sure.

But those investments are successful.

But right now, certainly I mean, the amount we're investing in traditional forms of public safety are just exponentially greater than the amount we're investing in this community Michael grown.

Do you think the political will to do something like that even exists?

>> Well, I think it's clear that it doesn't exist under this administration at the moment.

This is administration that is frozen more than 150 million dollars in community violence.

Intervention grants and it's doing this at a time when it just passed a budget bill.

It will cut more than 1 trillion dollars to Medicaid to snap programs across the country.

And so this is an administration that that has not making the types of investments that we've been talking about on this panel.

And in fact, it has been taking an axe, a chainsaw.

If you talk to you on Musk to the safety net, that that really 100 Kurds, all of this is really starting point.

And when you talk about perception, it is true that the things can always be better when it comes violence reduction.

But we've seen enough progress that in 2024.

Was the highest they've been since 2019.

The Chicago area continues to be the top market for corporate headquarters relocations.

So there are things that are happening with economy that are going well.

And it's just it's it's a suspect time in the name of public safety be taking measures that based on what we're seeing elsewhere are actually going undermine the economy and that just means less less revenue to support the types of public safety investments that we really need that will help prevent crime.

>> Captain got less than a minute left.

You know, you gave us a lot of numbers earlier showing that even in the communities that typically experience the most crime, even they are sharing the crime reduction that the city is seen on the >> How significant is that given the city's longstanding battle with crime.

I think it's incredibly significant.

Now, I know listening to this newscast right now, there is a family that's been impacted by Want to make sure that when I talk about reductions is not overlooking the people who have been impacted, we're currently impacted than the ripple effects in their community.

>> But the fact that we are seeing reductions is inspiring hope and renewal and recovery in the communities that for so long have been overlooked.

That is where I'm going to leave it because I think that's the best ways that we can leave.

is that there is hope, obviously work to be done.

Still.

>> And thanks to the 3 of you for studying your for of youth.

Use me for for studying