Community Justice Initiative

Our Program Mission

Make Chicago a place where everyone feels safe, can thrive and is treated fairly.

Our Goals

To create the conditions for a safe, peaceful, and more just city, the Community Justice Initiative focuses on three areas:

• Reduce gun violence on the west and south sides of Chicago
• Create positive connections for youth most vulnerable to exposure and engagement in violence
• Reform criminal justice system to improve public safety, reduce undue incarceration, and improve outcomes for justice-involved individuals and their communities

Our Approach

Chicago has seen 3-7 times more gun violence than other cities of its size. Violence in our city impacts everyone but is concentrated in racially segregated black and brown neighborhoods on the city’s south and west sides. These communities have long histories of marginalization, poverty, over-policing and concentrated incarceration. The McCormick Foundation believes that these drivers fuel violence by depleting neighborhoods of resources and creating systemic barriers for citizens to thrive.

And yet, for all the challenges these neighborhoods face, they remain vibrant places where community members have identified solutions and are working to take advantage of their unique assets. The Foundation also believes that reducing gun violence happens through investment in community engagement.

To that end, our approach calls for support of community driven solutions providing direct service to individuals at heightened risk for perpetrating or being victims of violence, policy and advocacy efforts that challenge systemic barriers, and research and evaluation of new and promising programs to surface novel solutions.