How Chicago Can Solve Violence and Make Itself Safer Than New York (Part IV)

City at Peace

By Steve Sewall, Chicago Civic Media. Created 7/02/18.

From Part III. Back to Parts I and Part II. Here is Has Violence Reduction Failed?

Part IV: Solving Violence by Generating Citywide Trust

Informing and connecting Chicagoans of all ages and backgrounds goes a long way towards solving violence. But more is needed to get the job done. Success in a city pervaded by mistrust requires trust. Verifiable trust.

ChicagoWRKS creates trust by consistently bringing out the best in Chicagoans and their leaders.

Not the worst, as we usually see in Chicago’s media, which presently are engines of mistrust.

Here’s how ChicagoWRKS creates trust. The show

1. Is rule governed with rules that get Chicagoans listening to and learning fromeach other. That make Chicagoans responsive and accountable to each other. That earn the respect of Chicagoans and their leaders.
2. Shows respect. ChicagoWRKS ensures that Chicagoans respect each other as Chicagoans. Even in the heat of political battle.
3. Keeps itself real. ChicagoWRKS enables Chicagoans to tell it like it is. It helps Chicago gets to the bottom of things. Speaks truth to power. So power can speak back. So truth and power can speak to each other. On ChicagoWRKS Chicagoans makes mistakes. And on ChicagoWRKS, Chicago learns from them.
4. Is recursive. ChicagoWRKS revisits past solutions in order to honor, revise or entirely replace them.
5. Is covered and critiqued by Chicago’s media just as Chicago’s media cover and critique Chicago’s sports telecasts and teams.

ChicagoWRKS is moderated by a charismatic host. Someone judicious, impartial, knowledgeable, straight-talking and trustworthy.

Two ChicagoWRKS referees monitor and regulate the quality of discourse, giving warnings and penalties to offenders according to written rules with which participants and TV viewers alike are familiar.

Three ChicagoWRKS judges observe and evaluate presentations by its competing teams.

ChicagoWRKS judges consult with invited experts and stakeholder citizens whose expertise and experience will contribute to their final evaluations.

A season of ChicagoWRKS plays out in six phases over a period of 32 weeks, with the first 16 weeks covered primarily by newspapers and TV newscasts and the last 16 weeks broadcast citywide as a prime time Reality TV show.

This graphic (click to enlarge it) gives an overview of the ChicagoWRKS (formerly named Chicago FIXIT):

In ways too numerous to be summarized here, rule-governed ChicagoWRKS succeeds because it gets Chicagoans (including city leaders) on the same page and listening to each other in the drive make Chicago safer than New York.

And Chicagoans can’t wait for ChicagoWRKS’s second season.

Virtually overnight, Chicago has morphed violence from unsolvable to solvable.

All at no cost to taxpayers.

So go for it, Chicago. Play the ChicagoWRKS game. And tell President Trump that Chicago is solving violence — on its own, thank you — in big, dynamic, democratic ways that other cities are fast replicating.

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• Our ChicagoWRKS Information Page has more information.
• ChicagoWRKS is a localized version of America’s Choice, our 2006 treatment for nationwide, civic-purposed reality TV.

Steve Sewall, Ph.D., is a Chicago educator, media entrepreneur and Director of Chicago Civic Media.