CHICAGO - With more than 200 homicides already reported in Chicago this year, there are many families and surviving victims facing a difficult road of recovery.

Susan Johnson, executive director of Chicago's Citizens for Change, runs a violence survivors' network called Chicago Survivors. She says victims of violence, and their families, often live in low-income communities and have been exposed to high levels of stress and crime over time. She says they need a supportive community that shows compassion and empathy, and doesn't wrongly place the blame on them.

"The police have a role, the M.E.'s office has a role, hospital personal of course, have a role," she says. "But when we talk about having a trauma-informed city, we're talking about subtle shifts in how traumatized people are treated that contribute to their ability to recover."

Victims and families of violent crime need community resources to help them face the burden of funeral costs, legal issues, and sometimes creditors. Johnson says counseling and support groups are also beneficial in helping survivors overcome trauma and prevent risky behaviors and violence in the future.

Johnson notes that job loss, loss of a home, and the inability to complete school are also very real problems in the aftermath of violence. She says access to those resources is needed before the police tape comes down.

"We're looking at intervening at that moment to help families stay together and help them stabilize," she says. "And especially to give young people ways to process what's happened to them so that they can be resilient and return to school, while parents get back to jobs."

Chicago's Citizens for Change is working with the city to develop a protocol that police, hospitals, and social-service agencies can use to help direct victims of violent crime to available resources. She says ending the cycle of violence should be a priority of everyone in the community.

"If we only think about it as response, if we don't think about it as prevention of new violence in the future, than we're missing the big picture," says Johnson. "We need to be serving these families because we can cut down on community violence."

Johnson's Chicago Survivors' group is developing an Internet network of available services, a 24-hour telephone hotline, and trained crisis team volunteers to work with those traumatized by violence.

This story is based on reporting from a yearlong Colorlines investigation by reporter Carla Murphy in Chicago. Murphy's reporting was done in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.


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A package to improve public safety is moving ahead in the California state Legislature - with a floor vote in the State Assembly on the first bill expected this week.

Assembly Bill 2215 puts into statute that police officers have the discretion to send people arrested for low-level offenses directly to supportive services.

Anthony DiMartino - government affairs director with the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice - said sometimes public safety is best served when people avoid arrest and instead get therapy, addiction support or help getting a job.

"We're also hoping to raise awareness that this is something officers can do, and then also encourage partnerships more with officers to look at what's in their community," said DiMartino, "as alternatives to jail booking."

A second bill would increase transparency and accountability on money sent to the counties as part of the Public Safety Realignment.

A third bill would require police officers, prosecuting attorneys and investigators to identify themselves any time they're interviewing a family member of someone killed or severely injured by police.

DiMartino said they also support AB 2499, which would ensure that survivors of violent crime and their family members can take unpaid time off work to address safety concerns and heal.

"We're hoping to broaden the scope a bit," said DiMartino, "and make it more clear that family members of victims are able to also tap into unpaid leave to support their family member that has been a victim."

A fifth bill would make it easier for justice-involved people and crime victims to speak freely during restorative justice programs - by making the communications inadmissible in other legal proceedings.

Missouri went through with its first execution of the year, as Brian Dorsey was put to death last night, just after 6 p.m. CT.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stop Dorsey's execution. He was convicted of murdering his cousin Sarah Bonnie and her husband Ben nearly 20 years ago.

The advocacy group Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty launched several recent campaigns on Dorsey's behalf to spare his life.

Jenni Gerhauser, a cousin to both Dorsey and Sarah Bonnie, expressed belief in his redemption.

"Brian is more than the worst moment of his life," Gerhauser stressed. "There is so much more to him."

Gerhauser fondly remembered him as fun and charming from their visits during holidays. Dorsey's current lawyers said he was in a drug-induced psychosis when he killed the Bonnies in 2006 and his attorneys at the time had been offered money, preventing them from fighting the death penalty with his guilty plea deal.

Gov. Mike Parson confirmed Monday the state would move forward with Dorsey's death sentence, rejecting a separate request for clemency. More than 70 current and former corrections officers had urged the governor to commute Dorsey's sentence, arguing he had been rehabilitated.

Claudia Boyce, also a cousin in the family, said it should not be a decision for the state to make.

"You know, that's supposed to be God's decision, not ours," Boyce contended.

Dorsey received a lethal injection Tuesday evening. Lethal injection became an option for people on Missouri's death row in 1987, alongside lethal gas.


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Amid overcrowding and unsafe conditions in West Virginia jails, state lawmakers introduced bills that would allow judges to take a 'second look' at an individual's original sentence.

If a court determines they no longer pose a threat to the community, the person could be released, placed on supervision, or receive a shortened sentence.

Sara Whitaker - criminal legal policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy - said West Virginia is one of the few states that has seen its prison population balloon over the past decade, despite declining crime.

She noted that as of last month, more than 500 people in the state were in jail awaiting transfer to a prison.

"As a result, eight out of 10 of the regional jails in the state were beyond capacity," said Whitaker, "with hundreds of people assigned to sleeping on the floor."

The bills failed to advance this session, but Whitaker said advocates are hopeful lawmakers will consider them next year.

The state's jails remain among the deadliest in the country, with at least 91 people losing their lives while incarcerated in the past few years.

According to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, jail bills cost counties $45 million in 2022.

Nationwide, long sentences have led to growth in the number of older people behind bars.

Whitaker pointed out that 'Second Look' legislation could help the state avoid turning its prisons into nursing homes, and said the number of elderly people in prison has tripled in the past two decades.

"In 2019, West Virginia had to open a dementia unit in one of its prisons," said Whitaker. "There are hospice units across multiple prisons. And experts predict that this is just only going to get worse."

Whitaker added that 'Second Look' policies also offer a way to correct past racial injustice in the criminal legal system.

Black people incarcerated in West Virginia are four times more likely than white people to be serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole, and five times as likely to be serving a life-without-parole sentence.




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