Public Safety A er Mayor Lightfoot expanded the citywide curfew, teenagers spoke about Chicago’s gun violence crisis and their relationships with the city.

NEWS & POLITICS

Young people dream

This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America.

Every Chicago summer follows a familiar pattern: Gun violence begins to spike around Memorial Day, sending municipal leaders into a fi t over how to keep young people safe while community members o er up ideas and push back against e orts they doubt will help. This year, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s response has centered on modifying the city’s decades-old curfew.

After 16-year-old Seandell Holliday was shot and killed in Millennium Park in midMay, Lightfoot issued an executive order that changed the curfew from 11 PM to 10 PM and expanded its scope from those under 16 to include 17-year-olds. She also banned minors who don’t have an adult with them from entering the park after 6 PM between Thursday and Sunday, and added checkpoints and metal detectors at the entrance of the iconic park.

Despite local pushback and evidence that curfews may actually increase crime, the Chicago City Council codifi ed the changes in late May. And the decision to ban young people from being outside late at night came as the city struggled with access to another type of public space: A lifeguard shortage threatened the reopening of public pools.

When she learned about the new rules, Indya Pinkard, 19, felt frustrated. A youth organizer with the grassroots racial justice organization Communities United, she questioned whether forcing young people inside was the best solution to the city’s ongoing gun violence crisis. If older folks get to be outside enjoying the long-awaited Chicago summer, she wondered, why shouldn’t young people?

For 18-year-old Markell Green, the curfew changes were warranted. Green participates in Chicago CRED, an anti-violence organization. He said the city needed to address the growing trend of large crowds of young people gathering downtown, and in his mind, keeping teens indoors was a valid way to do that.

“They was dancing on top of cars, hitting police cars,” Green said. “It was like a riot. No one was there to tell them to stop.”

While gun violence takes a signifi cant toll on the city’s youth, kids and teens under 19 were the third-most-impacted age group: They are 23 percent of the city’s population and 17 percent of the city’s shooting victims, according to police data analyzed by the University of Chicago Crime Lab. The people most represented in the data were between 20 and 29 years old, who made up about 39 percent of the city’s total shooting victims last year.

But Chicago youth often feel left out of the policy decisions that a ect them. So we set out to ask young people like Pinkard—teens from neighborhoods like Austin and Roseland that are most a ected by gun violence— what would actually make them feel safer this summer.

Each person we spoke with shared the more subtle ways Chicago’s gun violence crisis has altered their relationship with the city, causing them to be hyperaware of their surroundings or leaving them wondering if they shouldn’t be outside at all. Some o ered suggestions for the large-scale changes they’d need to better navigate this crisis, including curbing accessibility to guns. They also pointed to some less-obvious solutions, like expanding the public transit system so that buses and trains reach more communities and run more consistently—because in some areas, long wait times make them feel unsafe. These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

INDYA PINKARD, 19, FROM AUSTIN

What really got me started with Communities United was I had lost my little cousin due to gun violence. She took her own life on her 18th birthday. This helps me try to get as many young people to just consider a di erent route.

My first reaction to the curfew changes was frustrated. I was angry. Honestly, it don’t matter if the youth is on the streets or not, our community is still going to have violence. Whether it’s young people or old, we’re still going to have violence. So what’s another way

up a safer summer in Chicago

A er Mayor Lightfoot expanded the citywide curfew, teenagers spoke about Chicago’s gun violence crisis and their relationships with the city.

By JUSTIN AGRELO, THE TRACE

OLIVIA OBINEME

around this than just this curfew? We should have more activities, after-school programs, more mental health resources and hospitals.

In our generation, we’re used to older people not listening to us or hearing what we have to say. We have voices, too. What if they had curfews? They would feel the same way as the youth. Not all young people are criminals. Not all young people are bad. There’s some very intelligent, good youth out here that are being punished because of the acts of a few. We only have one life. Let us live it to the fullest.