Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks a the Pullman Community Center in the Ninth Ward Thursday. 

A report from Northwestern University found a 41 percent decrease in gun violence rates in Chicago and Cook County communities targeted by the state-backed Peacekeeper Program. 

The Peacekeeper Program model was adopted by the Illinois Office of Firearm Violence Prevention (OFVP) in 2023. The program trains residents to de-escalate and mediate conflicts at hotspot locations within their communities.  

According to a report from Northwestern’s Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science (CORNERS), the 27 city and eight suburban communities targeted by the program saw a 31 percent decrease in gun violence rates in 2023 and 2024, compared to the previous two years.  

Those communities include the Ninth Ward, where state, city and community leaders gathered Thursday to announce the decrease in gun violence.  

Arne Duncan, founder of the non-profit Chicago CRED, said the announcement was not a “mission accomplished moment.”  

“We have a long, long, long way to go, but the progress is undeniable,” he said. I always want to put it in context. Chicago is six times more violent than New York. We are three to four times more violent than LA and it doesn't have to be that way. And I always say it's not our children's fault. It's our fault. We have to give our children their childhoods back on the south and west sides.”  

He said if Chicago has another decrease in violence in 2025, it will be the first time in 25 years the city saw four years straight of violence reduction.  

“Violence begins violence, but peace begins peace,” he said. “When you have more violence, you have more heartbreak, you have more trauma, you have more retaliation. You have more violence.”  

In 2023 and 2024, peacekeepers conducted 2,170 conflict mediations, with a success rate of about 68 percent. The report also found that the time between shooting increased, with about 136 more “days of peace.”  

The program employed 1,213 peacekeepers in Fiscal Year 2024. Six peacekeepers died while in the program, two from natural causes and four from fatal gun violence.  

Illinois provided $11 million for the program in 2023 and $30 million in 2024.  

The program is part of a larger undertaking to prevent gun violence by the city and state. Gov. JB Pritzker declared gun violence a public health emergency in 2021. That same year, the state legislature passed the Reimagine Public Safety Act (RPSA), which included investments for community-based programs like the Peacekeeper Program.  

“Your work rests on one simple idea, the people who are most equipped to reduce gun violence are those who are closest to and most impacted by gun violence,” Pritzker said Thursday.  

Similarly, in 2020 the city published "Our City, Our Safety: A Comprehensive Plan to Reduce Violence in Chicago." The plan also aimed to reduce gun violence through a community-centered approach, partnering with community non-profits to address root causes of violence.  

Mayor Brandon Johnson followed a similar path when he took office in 2023, launching the People's Plan for Community Safety, collaborating with all sectors of city government and community organizations.  

Johnson said so far in 2025 there’s been a 23 percent decrease in homicides, including a 67 percent decrease so far in April.  

“That does not happen without the partnership with violence interrupters, community members as well as our police department,” Johnson said. “And while this is encouraging news, we know that any shooting or any death is one too many, so we still have a lot of work to be done.”  

Johnson touted a partnership with Good Kids, Mad City, which launched a pilot peacekeeper program last summer for teens and young adults. Through the program, the city will again hire 100 young people to act as peacekeepers. He said the city will also offer 29,000 jobs this summer for young people.