Tomorrow, a conversation with criminologist David M. Kennedy. His approach for reducing gang violence has dramatically reduced homicide rates nationwide. He’ll talk about the strategy, which is designed to confront gangs through community involvement and interventions. 

In that casket, I’m looking at 13, 14, 15, 18, 19-year-old men and women dying on the streets of Chicago. That’s what’s so profound to me about the violence. People look at it and they say, ‘Oh, well, Chicago has always been violent.’ But Chicago has not always had the youth violence and the youth death as high as it has been for the last several years. [That] has struck my nerve and my heart and my soul.

— Ameena Matthews on the pervasive youth violence in Chicago and why she now intervenes in gangs to try to stop the cycle of violence on the streets.