Building Back Broken Communities - The Ongoing Struggle For East St. Louis

About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges faced by East St. Louis and the collaborative efforts to improve public safety.

East St. Louis is a city that has struggled with just about every possible difficulty that a community can be subjected to. High crime rates, lack of job opportunities for its residents, and a plethora of other issues have resulted in the city losing over 75% of its population since peaking in the 1950s. At various points, the city has had the highest per-capita murder rate in the entire nation. With such a negative public perception, attracting businesses to invest in the area, despite being in a very desirable geographic location for shipping and transportation, has been extraordinarily difficult. While the fight is still ongoing and the broader issues are far from solved, several efforts have made substantial progress in East St. Louis. In particular, the ISP’s Public Safety Enforcement Group (PSEG) has made great strides in facilitating effective collaboration between local and state agencies. In a partnership that was previously unprecedented, Illinois State Police officers have worked alongside and pooled resources with East St. Louis Police officers, resulting in more solved cases, more convictions, and an overall decline in the city’s crime rates during the program’s…

People in this episode

Host: Brendan Kelly

Guest: Brittany Williams

Topics covered

• community struggles
• crime rates
• public safety
• collaboration
• East St. Louis
• local efforts

Keywords

• East St. Louis
• crime rates
• public safety
• collaboration
• Illinois State Police
• community issues
• Brittany Williams

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Illinois State Police, East St. Louis Police

Places: East St. Louis

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