“There is no cure-all for violence, but there are common sense public safety solutions that we know how to implement,” explains Aswad Thomas, a gun violence survivor and Vice President of the Alliance for Safety and Justice. “It is a matter of building the political will at the city, state, and national levels to bring these solutions to scale. Crime survivors have been working tirelessly to do just that. With Scaling Safety they now have a blueprint for a concerted call to action in city halls and statehouses across the country.”

The nation has been watching the state of Illinois struggle with an increase in prison expenditures, an increase in violence in Chicago, and an increase in the number of victims needing treatment and trauma recovery.