Dr. Gary Slutkin Ceasefire Founder: First Do No Harm; if You Can Get More Funding, PR, and a Movie Interrupt If You Must - The Hypocritic Oath
Inquiry. Homicide is a disease, but only in minority communities, where State dollars bandage cancer, therefore, inoculate that community with gangbanger viruses.
Why do I not get that? Probably because my education did not use John Dewey as a starting point.
Likewise, I am appalled by the complicity of WTTW, NPR and our supine media in touting the tax-payer funded boondoggle that is Ceasefire. Heck, even Stones Founder Jeff Fort's family are not happy with this symbiotic relationship - academia, media, and ambulance chasers.
The Family Fort, I remember sued PBS for violating its privacy upon the death of Mrs. Fort when that shot footage of the poor woman's wake, in order to prove that Ceasefire is not waste of tax-dollars. It is, but that is not important. Ceasefire is the subject of a documentary - The Interrupters.
. Ceasefire:It was founded by an epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin, who believes that the spread of violence mimics the spread of infectious diseases, and so the treatment should be similar: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source. One of the cornerstones of the organization is the “Violence Interrupters” program, created by Tio Hardiman, who heads the program. The Interrupters — who have credibility on the streets because of their own personal histories — intervene in conflicts before they explode into violence.
WTTW did the PR work for the a film by the gentlemen who made the documentary " Hoop Dreams."
Ceasefire is an established tax-payer funded boon-doggle that only seems to show up, after the chalk outlines and yellow police tape and numbered sandwich cardboard markers cover the spot where 9mm shell casings had been collected. Like, yesterday afternoon near 155th & ADA. The young men were shot and one died.
Ceasefire is an academic exercise in looking the budget. It Ceasefire is merely continuation of the John Dewey fiction that human life is merely a biology lab. Gary Slutkin operates from the premise that homicide is a disease like swine flu and by injecting the thug A white administartor5 brings all of the resources necessary to build a case for funding and the data charts, evaluations, protestations and need assesment for more tax dollars and "former" gang members intervene. Ceasefire missed a spot in Morgan Park/West Pullman yesterday. Must not have seen that unresolved conflict a coming.
The program is race driven and race painted; therefore very sexy. PBS is all in with Ceasefire, as are the academics at University of Illinois, the news media, and the politicians. It is another in our race based cottage industries, like Peoples Law Office.
A writer with the Chicago Justice Project notes this -
Focusing on the existence of CeaseFire through a race lens reveals that prejudice plays a major role is why CeaseFire exists. Prejudice helps determine why a white academic institution is needed as a filter to determine who does and who does not get anti-violence funding from the state. Prejudice helps policy makers feel better about giving the money out because it is going to a White academic and not directly to some hoodlums in a community of color. Prejudice helps explain why a White academic with no background in criminology or criminal justice issues receives huge amounts of funding from the State for work in communities of color. It also explains why the media can explain away financial improprieties revealed in the audit by saying they are minor accounting errors.
Can anyone out there really tell me this would be the position of the major media in Chicago if the program were run out of neighborhood organization in Woodlawn or Auburn Gresham? The great sham! Does CeaseFire work? Well, I think I have put a few kinks in the armor of those that would claim they have social science research to verify the successfulness of this program. Why then is this program so widely acclaimed and what does that have to do with race? CeaseFire is a liberal's dream program because it pays ex-gang members to now work on the streets towards a noble goal, the reduction of violence. The problem is that there has yet to be created a way for us to determine with any validity that the program is successful in any of their efforts.
Now this being Chicago and Illinois this did not stop the program from growing handsomely. Why you ask? Because politicians who had it operating in their communities could use the program as propaganda. Politicians who received funding to have CeaseFire operating in their communities could claim success in reductions that CeaseFire would claim they made in the specific areas. See, both the politician and CeaseFire gained by these claims and the validity of the claims was not as important as the ability to claim it worked. See, it is a conspiracy, but one of like-mindedness and not of overt agreements to be dishonest. The politicians know that there is no way CeaseFire can be validated so all they need is to obtain the funding for the program in their area and they can claim victory because CeaseFire will always claim they have made reductions. CeaseFire, like any institution, could be counted on to propagandize their achievements or claimed achievements every year; thus, both the politicians and the CeaseFire would benefit from the claims of success without every having to prove if the program worked. Once a politician received funding for the program in their particular area the crime reductions were automatic; it is almost like they were purchased with the funding check.
The film The Interrupters did not make it to the Academy Awards 2012, but it picked up a loudly blared Indie Award, according to the Chicago Media.
The Interrupters are the Chicago Police Department. Academics, gang-banger thug emeriti, columnists, public radio and television are united in undermining any and all confidence in law enforcement. That is the plan.
Chicago and other big cities will eliminate Police Departments with its quasi-military chain of command, elan, and esprit de corps. Private security companies directed by policy set by the same network of academics, lawyers, journalists and politicians is the plan.
Liars figure and figures lie and chalk outlines, yellow tape and shell casing covers will be visited by Ceasefire operatives and film crews.
The filmmakers will do fine; Gary Slutkin will do fine; WTTW will do fine and remain unchallenged. The young man, woman or toddler waiting for the bus near Popeye's Chicken will never be quicker than a 9mm.
http://www.chicagojustice.org/blog/ceasefire-effectiveness-and-the-role-race-plays-inhttp://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/publications/ceasefire_papers/executivesummary.pdf
