Giving Compass' Take:

• Chicago's attempts to improve police responses to shootings is getting a 10 million dollar boost from Ken Griffin. 

• Is Chicago's approach to addressing gun violence the most effective way to spend this money? How can other cities replicate and improve Chicago's model?

• Find out how science can be a tool in the fight against gun violence.  

Chicago billionaire Ken Griffin is donating $10 million toward the Chicago's efforts to reduce gun violence, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office announced Tuesday.

Griffin’s latest donation will largely support a partnership of the Chicago Police Department and University of Chicago Crime Lab. In early 2017, they opened “Strategic Decision Support Centers” in high-crime police districts.

The centers, which cost about $1.5 million each, are rooms inside police stations in which police officers and U. of C. analysts crunch gunshot data to determine where to best deploy cops. Information from gunshot detectors and surveillance cameras is displayed on large monitors. Officers have real-time access to the information via cellphone and in-car computers, alerting them to the spot where a shooting occurred.

The police department partly credits a recent decline in gun violence to the support centers. Through March, the number of homicides in Chicago was down 17 percent, and the number of shooting victims decreased 30 percent compared with the same period of 2017.

Police Supt. Eddie Johnson has said the centers have reduced officers’ response times to shootings by more than five minutes.

The money also will help improve services for officers, including training, stress management, and mental health treatment, according to the mayor.

Read the full article on Ken Griffin by Frank Main at Chicago Sun.