Billionaire Chicago real estate investor James Crown promises to reduce the murder rate in Chicago and make it “the safest city in America” by creating jobs in poor neighborhoods, funding violence intervention programs and strengthening law enforcement agencies.

One of the wealthiest businessmen in Chicago, Crown heads up the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a group up of senior executives of Chicago’s most prominent businesses.

With a membership of some of the wealthiest Chicago residents, the exclusive downtown Commercial Club is a who’s who of corporate CEOs and hospital and university leaders, Chicago Sun-Times reported.

They are combining resources to try and combat Chicago’s spiraling crime rate. Their goal is to reduce the number of killings in the city from 700 a year to less than 400 a year within five years.

“We came up with those numbers because, adjusted for population, it’s what’s been achieved in Los Angeles and New York,” Crown said.

Chicago had 695 killings in 2022 and 804 in 2021, according to the Police Department. New York, with three times more people, had 433 murders in 2022.

The committee did six months of research, interviewing former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, former Chicago Police Supt. David Brown, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart and leaders of dozens of organizations tied to the criminal justice system.

Crown, whose family ranked 34th-richest in America in 2020, according to Forbes, is worth an estimated $10.2 billion.

The Crowns have a vested interest in the fate of Chicago and a history dating back more than 100 years in the city, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.

Crown family interests include big investments in Chicago real estate. They partnered with developer Sterling Bay, where Jim Crown’s nephew Keating Crown is active in acquiring properties in the Fulton Market neighborhood. The Crowns also have invested in Sterling Bay’s massive Lincoln Yards project on the city’s North Side and its 47-story tower at 300 N. Michigan Ave. Another Crown-owned site at 130 N. Franklin St. has been awaiting redevelopment for decades.

The crime reduction strategy focuses on getting jobs for thousands of people in the most dangerous parts of Chicago, providing millions of dollars for civilian violence intervention, strengthening law enforcement agencies and investing in low-income communities.

“Historically, the Civic Committee has not been involved in public safety matters,’ Crown told the Chicago Sun Times. “I gotta say this with real humility: We’re late to the conversation. We’re late to the understanding of some of these things.

“You’ve got altruism,’ Crown continued. “But you’ve also got the enlightened self-interest of: I want to be safe, I want my workers to come to work, I want the tourists to patronize my business, whatever that might be.”

The Commercial Club members have tasked themselves with the responsibility of finding jobs for “alumni” of violence intervention programs which they plan to establish in high-crime areas.

More than 10,000 people in Chicago would be candidates for such jobs, according to the Chicago Sun Times.  The committee plans to combine “tens of millions” of dollars between the members, however, no exact figure has been announced.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was inaugurated May 15, has blamed the city’s poverty and skyrocketing crime rates in part on businesses that don’t pay tax, the Daily Mail reported.

According to Johnson, 70 percent of large corporations in Illinois don’t pay a corporate tax.

“It’s that type of restraint on our budget that has caused the type if disinvestment that has led to poverty, of course that has led to violence,” Johnson said.

There’s a good argument to be made that corporate Chicago only became alarmed when violence invaded the Loop and adjacent business districts, and wealthy residents like Ken Griffin moved their businesses and left town. Boeing, Caterpillar and other corporate headquarters have left Chicago. McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski aired his concerns at the Economic Club of Chicago in September, Crains reported.

“Business wants to see police visible in front of establishments for their own benefit. It’s not doing anything to address gun violence in Englewood or Austin,” says David Olson, a Loyola University Chicago criminology professor. Meanwhile, he said, past anti-violence efforts have fallen short due to lack of business participation.

The cost the public pays for responding to gunshot wounds and treating them is astronomical, Crown said — about $1.5 million per person who gets shot, according to a 2019 estimate by the University of Chicago.

The “alumni” of violence intervention programs who qualify for jobs under the program will need wraparound services from community organizations, according to Derek Douglas, president of the organization’s Civic Committee.

“You’re going to be serving, you know, thousands of people each year,” said Douglas, a former University of Chicago vice president. “So we have a sense of the scale.”

Chicago has been No. 1 in the U.S. for the 11th straight year with the highest number of homicides of any city, according to a report published in February.  

“This isn’t a cure-all solution for public safety, but it’s a recognition that the business community has to do its part,” said Robert Boik, former head of the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Constitutional Policing, now

“This isn’t a cure-all solution for public safety, but it’s a recognition that the business community has to do its part,” said Robert Boik, former head of the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Constitutional Policing, now the committee’s vice president for public safety, in a Fox 32 interview.