Violence is a global public health crisis. Violence is prevalent for many individuals and communities in Illinois (Garthe et al., 2021), and a leading cause of death (Illinois Department of Public Health, 2022). Experiencing or perpetrating violence can result in an array of negative health, mental health, economic, and relational impacts (World Health Organization, 2023). Thus, the prevention of violence is paramount.
The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) aims to continue funding and supporting violence prevention efforts across Illinois. This report was written to inform ICJIA'S violence prevention planning for 2025-2029, but also with the intent to be utilized by any state or community group interested in violence prevention efforts or in developing their own localized plan. The first Statewide Violence Prevention Plan, for 2020-2024, was released in 2021. Since then, a variety of implementation, research, and activities have taken place. The Ad Hoc Violence Prevention Committee and its workgroups reviewed these activities, reports, and research, discussing ways in which this work could be used to inform the next violence prevention plan, collectively writing the 2025-2029 goals and recommendations. This plan presents three violence prevention goals and recommendations within each goal. They include:
Prevent violence and promote health and safety through trauma-informed/healing-centered, evidence-based and comprehensive primary, secondary, and/or tertiary prevention efforts
Programs and services should:
- Honor people's complex histories (i.e., multi-generational adversity and trauma, multiple victimizations and perpetrations) and provide holistic services that address multiple forms of violence
- Aim to engage families, schools, communities, and other important relationships and contexts in prevention efforts
- Aim to address multiple risk and protective factors within an individual's social ecology and shared risk and protective factors
- Focus on groups of individuals at a higher risk for violence (e.g., individuals with minoritized identities, individuals with high levels of adversity), aiming to minimize or eliminate inequities
- Address local needs using evidence-based practices (i.e., using research or evaluation evidence, clinical expertise, and client values)
Organizations should:
- Strengthen the capacity of providers to implement trauma-informed and healing-centered policies, training, and organizational practices
- Foster culturally responsive, trauma-informed/healing-centered environments that provide safe and developmentally appropriate opportunities. Additionally, organizations should equip providers with developmentally and culturally appropriate screening practices and referral networks for providers to actively implement
- Use evidence-based practices or discuss a plan for conducting an evaluation of proposed efforts
- Support prevention staff's health and well-being using organizational trauma-informed/healing-centered practices and aiming for pay equity, to the extent possible
Advance equity by increasing access to grants and other economic opportunities
- Continue improving access to funding
- Provide more support for small and medium-sized organizations
- Improve reimbursement and budget processes
- Promote and connect grantee work
- Improve systems and communication
Promote collaboration across state, municipal, and community-based agencies, informed by research and data, sharing of best practices and lessons learned, and ongoing discussions
- Analyze and disseminate statewide data trends and continue to collect data to inform future violence prevention planning efforts. This ongoing data analysis and collection should incorporate youth, family, and community feedback and utilize quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods, including rigorous comparison group data. ICJIA should determine its capacity to complete this objective internally or through a contract with research partners
- Coordinate violence prevention funding in Illinois by continuing the Ad Hoc Violence Prevention Committee under the ICJIA Board structure
- Host a statewide violence prevention event to highlight research and program evaluation findings, as well as the work of community-based organizations leading violence prevention work. This event could also encourage governmental partnerships and build community across grantees, evaluators, governmental officials, stakeholders, and researchers
As this work continues, ICJIA is committed to supporting violence prevention initiatives. The goals of this plan aim to address inequities by increasing access to grant and economic opportunities and prioritizing trauma-informed/healing-centered practices across the state and within communities most impacted by violence. Focused and deliberate efforts are critically needed to begin the process of healing and finding justice within communities that have faced persistent inequities and disinvestment, structural racism, and other systemic barriers. Furthermore, Illinois is committed to violence prevention efforts from a public health perspective, utilizing evidence-based practices.