$500K For Violence Interrupters, $50K To Text Victims In Lake County

WAUKEGAN, IL — The state budget approved by lawmakers this week includes funding for two new programs in the Lake County State's Attorney's Office.

A two-year pilot program to automatically text victims and witnesses about upcoming court dates will receive $50,000, while a newly created gun violence prevention initiative gets $500,000 through a state grant, according to county officials.

According to the state's attorney's office, State Sen. Julie Morrison (D-Lake Forest) and State Rep. Joyce Mason (D-Gurnee) helped get the texting program funding across the finish line, while State Rep. Rita Mayfield (D-Waukegan) helped secure the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority grant.

“It’s pertinent we make the court system as accessible as possible for victims of crime to get justice,” Morrison said in statement. “I worked diligently to secure funding for this pilot program which will make a difference in how Lake County will be able to communicate to victims and their families.”

The pilot texting program will allow participants to ask follow-up questions to victim witness counselors in the state's attorney's office. There are 12 such full-time employees in the state's attorney's office who support more than 1,000 victims at a time. A grant from the MacArthur Foundation funded the creation of a similar system for defendants.

Related: Proposal Automatically Notifies Victims, Witnesses Of Court Dates

The other new program included in the state budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, is the state's attorney's office's Gun Violence Prevention Initiative, or GVPI. The Lake County Board previously allocated the program $560,000 from federal coronavirus relief money.

“Our communities are suffering from senseless gun violence that disproportionally impacts young men and women of color,” Mayfield said in a statement. “This funding to the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office and additional funding provided to community-based organizations across Lake County will infuse much needed resources into stemming this tide of violence in our most impacted communities.”

According to the state's attorney's office, the additional grant will be used to hire a full-time director for the initiative who will be tasked with identifying recipients and providing small grants to community-based organizations who will manage staff in targeted areas around the county to reduce gun violence. The office is working with nationally recognized specialists in the field to develop the initiative.

While the county prosecutor's office has yet to finalize the rules for how the initiative will operate, representatives have pledged to pursue additional public and private grants and implement a rigorous vetting process to determine which organization will receive funding to hire "violence interrupters" through the initiative.

“As is the case nationally and throughout the state, we’ve seen a rise in gun violence in Lake County over the last several years. Every homicide is a tragedy," Lake County State's Attorney Eric Rinehart said in a statement. "A State’s Attorney’s job is to urgently marshal every possible resource to stop the damage from crime, support victims, and prosecute criminals. We have built a violent crime unit to proactively investigate; we have updated antiquated forensic software to use digital evidence against drivers of violence; and, through the GVPI, we are now aggressively addressing the lack of services those most at risk.”