“Chain Reaction” is a unique popular education project that supports alternatives to calling police on young people – it elevates the voices and perspectives of youth through audio, visuals, a toolkit and much more. Check it out here.
“Chain Reaction is a participatory research and popular education project with the goal of supporting conversations about alternatives to calling police on young people. Listen to our audio or watch our videos that feature youth in Chicago telling their own stories about policing, or check out our growing toolkit of other resources. And we have audio FAQs for your listening pleasure.
When police intervene in situations involving youth, ranging from loitering and petty crimes to more severe violence, police involvement typically sets off a chain of events that can have far-reaching effects on a young person’s life. Chain Reaction is a volunteer-run, youth-driven project that aims to interrupt that chain reaction in the city of Chicago. The project is complete for the moment, and this website is the result of our efforts.
We started by documenting these effects from the perspective of young people in Chicago who have had direct encounters with police.
Then we hosted listening session, asking people to reflect upon a set of questions within the context of their own communities:
1. What is the chain reaction that we would ideally like to create in response to fear, violence, or harm?
2. What resources do we already have in our communities to begin this chain reaction?
3. What alternatives to calling police exist for those considering relying on police interventions with young people?
4. What alternatives would we like to create?
Finally, Chain Reaction created a curriculum so that others can replicate this project and use it to explore alternatives to policing in your own own communities.
Founded in 2011, Chain Reaction is a volunteer-run initiative of Project NIA, which is a Chicago community organization with the goal of ending youth incarceration. Find out how we work and how to do a project like this one in your own community.”
Taken from the ‘About‘ section.
