Chicago Mayor's Race: Crime/Police

CBS 2 asked Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot for their positions on key issues facing Chicago.

TONI PRECKWINKLE

Crime and police reform will be a primary focus for the next mayor of Chicago. That is why I have released a comprehensive Public Safety platform striving to address the challenges Chicago faces. The plan puts an emphasis on the next mayor taking direct ownership in making Chicago safe for its residents in forming a brand new Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. This will ensure a holistic and collaborative approach to public safety throughout the city.

My criminal justice platform also puts and emphasis on making sure we restore trust and accountability between the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the communities in which they serve. This will mean engaging community stakeholders, enforcing the consent decree, implementing a system of civilian oversight, and integrating community in every aspect of CPD's operations, from training to crime prevention.

The third and final point of emphasis in my criminal justice platform is ensuring the CPD is the most effective police force in the country. We would accomplish this goal by improving training, supervision, promotion, collaboration and crime-solving capacity within the department and demanding real improvement in homicide clearance and overall crime reduction.

LORI LIGHTFOOT

As a former federal prosecutor, former Police Board president, and former Police Accountability Task Force chair, I have the experience and vision to make all communities safe. For too long, Chicago leaders failed to provide a real, comprehensive plan to make a sustainable reduction in violence.

This can and must change, and I have a road map to make it happen. My public safety plan includes multiple strategies for improving our woeful homicide clearance rate, like having detectives build relationships in the communities they serve and providing support for victims, their families, and witnesses.

I have also committed to the creation of a Mayor's Office of Public Safety that will look at violence in our city as the public health crisis that it is. I commit to hiring public health and social service experts with a dedicated funding stream.