Dear Next President,

          There are a lot of stories on the news about innocent kids getting shot in the bad neighborhoods in Chicago due to gang violence. One particular story is about a little 6 year old girl named Aliyah Shell. On a sunny afternoon, Aliyah Shell was sitting between her mother's legs on the family's Little Village front porch as her mother untangled her hair. The family had a friend's birthday party to attend. Suddenly, shots rang out from a pickup truck. Aguilar said she knocked her 2-year-old daughter on her back and hugged Aliyah tightly. But Aliyah was shot several times and died that afternoon at a hospital. Aliyah was my friend, more like family to me. I was devastated when I found out I wouldn’t see or hear her anymore. I don’t want other kids or mothers to go through that so I want to make Chicago streets safe for young kids like Aliyah. I want there to be more police officers in the bad neighborhood where Aliyah lived and were other kids who have died because of gang violence. I also want there to be more gang prevention programs and delinquency programs to prevent kids from going into gangs in the first place.

          Chicago’s murder rate is up 72 percent, shootings are up more than 88 percent in 2016. Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, has experienced more homicides this year than the bigger cities of Los Angeles and New York combined. There have been 90 murders in the month of August alone, making it the deadliest month in Chicago in about 20 years. One article says Chicago's murder rate soared 72 percent in 2016, with shootings up more than 88 percent. It says, "We have a level of shootings and gun violence that's unacceptable and must come to an end. It means we have to have a leadership and lead from the front and get not only our officers' morale level up but our violence level down.” What this is saying is that we need help to stop these killings and violence. No programs have been developed specifically to prevent gangs from emerging. That is the source of the gang violence and people getting killed if we prevent kids from going into gangs we can lessen the violence.

          If you want to stop gang violence or at least help our young grow up you can go to protests or be a leader and gather people together and protest. To prevent youth from joining gangs, communities must do multiple strategies and services, including: 

• telling our youth the bad things about joining a gang, 
  
• strengthening families, 
  
• providing more supervision on our youth, training for teachers and parents on how to handle disruptive and delinquent youth
  
• looking over and softening school “zero tolerance” policies to reduce suspensions and expulsions 
  
• not allowing gang related material or symbols. 
  
• helping students who are doing poorly in school. 
  
• providing interpersonal skills training to students to help resolve conflicts, gang awareness training for the school parents, and students. 
  
• teaching students that gangs can be dangerous. 
  

If you help this city you will see a big difference. On the news there won’t be another little girls or boys picture saying they were killed because of a drive by. Or a mother crying and saying, “She didn’t deserve this."

Sincerely, 

Anel