PEORIA, Ill. – The Peoria City Council is going to give more consideration to an initiative they rejected two weeks ago.
“Cure Violence” is a national entity that deals with identifying and solving gun violence, and the city was asked to give $25,000 in American Rescue Plan money for it to get started here.
The Peoria City/County Health Department backs the effort.
“Initially implemented in Chicago under the name ‘Ceasefire,’ Cure Violence yielded between 41 and 73 percent reductions in shootings in five of the seven target neighborhoods,” said Katy Endress, Clinical Services Director, Peoria City/County Health Department.
Part of the success of the program in Chicago and other cities, was by identifying gun violence as a public health issue, and targets learned behavior.
“This is a fundamental shift towards thinking of this as a public health issue,” said Monica Hendrickson, Public Health Administrator. “This isn’t about bad people committing senseless acts to be punished. But, rather, these are individuals who have learned behavior. That is, it’s a contagious process. We don’t need to punish them, but rather, to work towards interrupting and changing their behaviors.”
Can gun violence be a public health issue? No, says District Two Council Member Chuck Grayeb.
“I think it’s too cute, by far, to be using this medical analogy. That kinds of turns me off right away,” said Grayeb. “It’s nothing to do with that, unless you want to say somebody being shot, that’s a community health problem. That’s a problem for the person being shot going to the hospital.”
Grayeb suggested sarcastically the entire police department budget should just go to the Health Department.
A new vote on the funding request could come in two weeks.
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