The Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence (ICHV) is the oldest and largest statewide organization in the U.S. working to prevent the devastation caused by firearms. ICHV works on a variety of fronts to educate, raise public awareness, and build coalitions to enact change in laws and behavior.

Gun violence has been recognized as a public health crisis. Every day, 100 people are killed and hundreds more are shot. And Chicago is at the center of the gun violence epidemic sweeping the country. Every week, nearly 40 people are shot across the city. That’s the equivalent of a mass shooting every seven days, yet so many Chicagoans have become numb to the violence. These numbers have become so normal that they don’t even warrant a news story. They get buried on the back page of newspapers in town. Gun violence in Chicago has a more predictable pattern than the weekly weather.

How do you shine a new light on a problem that’s plagued Chicago year after year? By putting all the city’s gun violence on one street, making it impossible to ignore.

Lasers are used by forensic scientists to track the path of bullets at crime scenes for use in courtrooms. We borrowed from that technique to create an installation in which each laser represents a victim from a single week of gun violence – all placed on one street.

We sourced data from the Chicago Police Department and news and media outlets, and consulted with the University of Chicago Crime Lab to create a walk-through installation of the gun violence problem with the most accurate and real-time data.

Most Dangerous Street is a walk-through, week-by-week visualization of Chicago’s gun violence on one street. Guided by emotional audio of victims’ families telling their stories, you are surrounded by laser beams, each representing a victim of gun violence. When you cross through beams, projections display details of the victim, bringing the data to life. People were encouraged to take action through a mobile site dedicated for the SAFE Act. An important piece of legislation needed to get funding for economic development in neighborhoods most affected by gun violence.

Over 40 state legislators and 93% of Chicago-based lawmakers were impacted by the Most Dangerous Street through our onsite digital kiosks and microsite. As a result, the SAFE Act, the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence supported bill, is gaining unprecedented momentum in the state legislature, and the SAFE Act is scheduled for a vote in the fall of 2019.