Cohort 2022

Equiticity Racial Equity Movement

Racially Equitable Traffic Safety in Chicago

Chicago, IL

Black and Brown communities across Chicago disproportionately experience harm from policing, including profiling, overpolicing, civil rights abuses, police violence, and murder. Moreover, structural, systemic, and institutional challenges in law enforcement persist and worsen. Black and Brown neighborhoods continue to be at risk of and harmed by policing policies, protocols, and practices, including those pertaining to traffic stops and safety.

With Catalyst Grant funding, the Equiticity Racial Equity Movement, in partnership with Business and Professional People for Public Interest (BPI), will develop an advocacy campaign focused on operationalizing racially equitable traffic safety in Chicago. Through its work, it hopes to encourage policy change that would limit the number of police interactions and in turn reduce police violence and overcriminalization. Equiticity will collect public safety data from the Chicago Police Department and city agencies, develop an online repository of related research from across the United States, establish a coalition of organizations led by Black and Brown people, and create a policy framework for racially equitable traffic safety that will be owned and maintained by the community.