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Homicide Capital in 2003, Chicago Has a Turnaround

CHICAGO, Jan. 1 - Chicago, which had the unwanted distinction of having more homicides than any other city in the nation a year ago, seems in a single year to have undergone a remarkable turnaround, with killings in 2004 at their lowest tally since 1965.

The authorities here credited new policing methods -- surveillance cameras in heavy drug-trafficking areas and more officers on the streets, particularly in the most notorious gang neighborhoods -- for the 25 percent drop, from 598 homicides at the end of 2003 to 447 this year, as of Dec. 30. It has been nearly four decades since Chicago's annual murder rate dipped below 500.

"Our success is based on what doesn't happen," said Dave Bayless, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department. "We're taking our technology, meshing it with our gang intelligence, and from that we're able to get a good sense of where violent crime takes place."

New York City and Los Angeles, which ranked behind Chicago in 2003, had more homicides than did Chicago in 2004. New York's total, 566 as of Dec. 31, was down more than 5 percent from 2003; Los Angeles's, 511 as of Dec. 29, was essentially unchanged.

Chicago's decline also followed a national trend. Violent crimes decreased across the country by about 2 percent in the first half of 2004, according to the most recent F.B.I. statistics. In cities with populations of one million or more, the drop was even more significant -- 5 percent.

The police also attributed some of the decline in Chicago to programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods, a federal initiative to crack down on gun offenders, and CeaseFire, an antiviolence program.

Tio Hardiman, a self-described former street hustler who grew up in the city's Henry Horner public housing with connections to several gangs, is the director of gang mediation services for CeaseFire in Chicago. He said he decided he wanted to work in violence prevention after seeing a man get shot and killed in a bar 20 years ago.

"The look I saw on that guy's face changed my mind forever," Mr. Hardiman said. "It really transformed me right then and there."

This week, Mr. Hardiman said, a 30-year-old gang member handed over his gun after outreach workers talked him out of shooting a rival.

"There was four bullets in the gun. It could have represented four lives," he said. "This is what you call one of them little miracles. When a person gives up their gun, that's a sure sign of surrender."

CeaseFire leaders said they had expanded from 4 neighborhoods to 12 in 2004 and grew to 70 outreach workers from 20 between the summer of 2003 and last summer. They said those workers checked in on about 1,000 clients -- mostly former prisoners -- and tried to mediate disagreements between gangs before they turned violent.

The police said the biggest declines in crime took place in some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods. Those were also the spots where they dispatched extra officers; about 180 officers in the Targeted Response Unit were assigned every night to areas with high incidences of gang violence, Mr. Bayless of the Police Department said.

Killings declined by 55 percent in one district on the West Side, and by 52 percent in one on the South Side.

Many Chicago residents have not noted the drop in killings, according to a Chicago Tribune poll of 800 people in December. About half the respondents said they were unaware of the decrease, and 40 percent said they thought most Chicago neighborhoods were unsafe.

Still, Norman Kerr, the director of CeaseFire, said that although some people would still say Chicago's crime rate is high, many who live in historically violent neighborhoods have come to feel safer and less inured to violence.

"It is a strong start," Mr. Kerr said. "You look at how Chicago was six or seven years ago, and it's a dramatic change. We're seeing a shift in the way people think, to, you know, Chicago doesn't have to be that way."

In the city, overall crime declined for the 14th straight year. The number of shootings dropped by 39 percent, and several other crimes -- including sexual assault and robbery -- dropped by smaller percentages.

Police officials say they intend to employ more new strategies in 2005, including the installation of surveillance cameras around the city equipped with technology to register when and where a gun has been shot.

"We're pleased with the success we've had, but we're by no means satisfied," said Philip Cline, Chicago's police superintendent. "One murder or one shooting is one too many."

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section 1, Page 17 of the National edition with the headline: Homicide Capital in 2003, Chicago Has a Turnaround. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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