• Listen to this segment with Aquil Basheer

• Listen to the entire program with Sonali Kolhatkar

In July, the nation was shocked to hear of the sky-high rate of holiday weekend violence in Chicago. Dozens of people were killed in just the first two weeks of the month. Even though homicides from shooting incidents are apparently slowly decreasing, Chicago remains the American city most plagued by gun violence.

Now, the FBI has announced it will send it so-called “surge teams” into what are deemed “high-crime” neighborhoods. Sixty five FBI agents are planning to work closely with Chicago Police on “gang suppression missions,” that involve surveillance and intelligence gathering, and eventually arrests and seizures of non-legal guns.

Meanwhile in New York, under Mayor Bill De Blasio, the city is taking quite a different approach to the issue of gangs. As part of it’s anti gun-violence program, the city plans to spend $13 million to employ ex-gang members as ambassadors to educate young people about the dangers of gun violence. The initiative is part of the types of community based policing and crime prevention hailed by progressives, and by my guest,

GUEST: Aquil Basheer, author of Peace In the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence

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