Why is Chicago violence plummeting? Some credit street outreach workers

Mid-morning is usually a quiet time in Frederick Seaton’s profession. I’m across the table at the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago’s main office on the West Side, ready to record an interview.

But his phone keeps lighting up.

“What’s going on?” Seaton answers a call from one of the nine street outreach workers he supervises in West Garfield Park, the neighborhood where they all grew up.

Seaton hears there was a shooting minutes ago near West Madison Street, the neighborhood’s main drag.

The outreach worker on the phone, who’s already there, tells Seaton there are two victims, a man and a woman.

Seaton’s team is looking into what sparked the attack and gathering information about the victims’ relatives.

Their goal is to track down anyone prone to retribution, he says.

“Everybody has