Big spike in 2016 Chicago youth homicides linked to pause in state funding – Medical Express

"When the state came to its budget impasse in 2015, and budgets were really cut, the staffs were laid off and services were closed, it temporally correlates with the big uptick in youth homicides," said study author Maryann Mason, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "Then, when the budget was reinstated in 2017, you can see the big decline in homicides. The state budget provides things like street-violence interruption and supports all the things you'd think of as keeping kids productively busy and increasing positive connectivity."