{"id":1191,"date":"2016-04-19T12:59:34","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T17:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/?p=1191"},"modified":"2016-04-19T13:37:59","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T18:37:59","slug":"dont-shoot-peoria-effective-or-forgotten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/2016\/04\/19\/dont-shoot-peoria-effective-or-forgotten\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Shoot Peoria – Effective or Forgotten?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t Shoot Peoria \u2013 Effective or Forgotten?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PEORIA – Peoria\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Shoot\u201d program started in 2012 as an anti-gang and anti-gun violence campaign designed to decrease violence and keep the streets of Peoria safe. The program, led by Mayor Jim Ardis, came as an extension off successful campaigns such as those implemented in Boston, Indianapolis and Cincinnati, according to the website. All of these cities have recorded a decrease in either violent crimes, gun violence or homicides.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now nearly four years after the program launched here in the River City, it\u2019s safe to wonder whether or not it has impacted our community. Since 2012, the number of shooting victims hasn\u2019t seen a notable change; although, citizen\u2019s \u201cshots fired\u201d calls have. There have been 156 less calls from citizens reporting gunshots this year than in 2012, concluding that the community is hearing less violence entirely.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Peoria County Probation Officer Drew Schulze explained that this program has taken a different direction recently, which might be the reason for change in publicity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt began as public awareness, and it still is, but has shifted into education for target offenders,\u201d said Schulze. \u201cThe main focus now is to bring in gang members and violent offenders to educate them.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite being featured\u00a0by major news outlets such as USA Today\u00a0and Huffington post regarding success stories, both the campaign website\u00a0and Facebook\u00a0page haven\u2019t been updated within the last year, leaving room for concern. In fact, the gun-related crime count still sits at 605 from January 2014.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Peoria resident Jade Stewart remembers the initial implementation.\u00a0“There were posters and stickers everywhere about it. The CityLink buses were covered in advertisements,” said Stewart. “I don’t see those ads anymore.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stewart isn’t the only one not seeing these, leaving the city wondering if Don’t Shoot Peoria still lives. To voice your concern you can contact the Mayor’s office at (309)494-8519.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can find the statistics and violence hot-spots at\u00a0http:\/\/www.peoriagov.org\/peoria-police-department\/police-crime-view-map-stats\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t Shoot Peoria \u2013 Effective or Forgotten?   PEORIA – Peoria\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Shoot\u201d program started in 2012 as an anti-gang and anti-gun violence campaign designed to decrease violence and keep the streets of Peoria safe. The program, led by Mayor Jim Ardis, came as an extension off successful campaigns such as those implemented in Boston, Indianapolis and Cincinnati, according to the website. All of these cities have recorded a decrease in either violent crimes, gun violence or homicides.   Now nearly four years after the program launched here in the River City, it\u2019s safe to wonder whether or not it has impacted our community. Since 2012, the number of shooting victims hasn\u2019t seen a notable change; although, citizen\u2019s \u201cshots fired\u201d calls have. There have been 156 less calls from citizens reporting gunshots this year than in 2012, concluding that the community is hearing less violence entirely. Peoria County Probation Officer Drew Schulze explained that this program has taken a different direction recently, which might be the reason for change in publicity.   \u201cIt began as public awareness, and it still is, but has shifted into education for target offenders,\u201d said Schulze. \u201cThe main focus now is to bring in gang […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[50,34],"class_list":["post-1191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-car","tag-com425"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1191"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1208,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions\/1208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}