Empowering Communities for Public Safety Coalition Awarded
On Wednesday, June 29, 2022 the Empowering Communities for Public Safety Coalition was awarded The Woods Fund of Chicago Power of Community Award at the Local Initiatives Support Corp. Chicago 28th Annual Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards. The ECPS Coalition exemplifies this year's LISC theme of "Redesigning Legacy" in collaborative and well-considered community work. Relive the celebration by watching the winner spotlight below.
The Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards event was created in 1994 by LISC Chicago to celebrate Chicago’s communities and outstanding new community developments, and to honor the community developers and for-profit organizations behind them. In its 28th year, CNDA is the largest and most venerated celebration of the creativity and accomplishments that transform neighborhoods across the city of Chicago.
On July 21, 2021, the Chicago City Council passed the historic Empowering Communities for Public Safety Ordinance (ECPS)—the culmination of a six year long organizing campaign that engaged thousands of people across the city of Chicago, creating the most democratic policing system anywhere in the country.
Two coalitions, the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA) and the Chicago Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression (CAARPR), joined together in early 2021 to create and advocate for the ECPS ordinance to increase community power, oversight of policing and safety in Chicago.
The ECPS ordinance created the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability designed to ensure that policies and priorities are rooted in expert knowledge about best practices and grounded in the needs and values of the community. The ordinance also creates elected, three-member “District Councils” in each of the city’s police districts, bringing together police district leadership and community members to set local priorities and work together on neighborhood safety plans.
In January of 2022, Mayor Lightfoot appointed Adam Gross, a leader with deep experience in developing, advocating for and implementing structural police reforms, as the first Executive Director of Chicago’s Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability.
*CRS is a member of the ECPS coalition.