The promise, the pledge and the hope to protect Black women in Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) – Black women have been disproportionately impacted by crime for decades in Chicago, and now, there is a new effort to shine a light on the problem and find solutions.

Black women made up 16% of Chicago's population, but accounted for 30% of crime victims in 2022. Mayor Brandon Johnson reacted to a CBS News Chicago investigation on how hard Black women are hit by crime by promising a task force to look into the issue. 

The goal is to make the city safer for Black women and for everyone who lives in, works in, and visits Chicago.

Mayor Johnson spoke about his plan "to create a task force to really begin to dig in deeper of how the city of Chicago can show up to provide true protection for Black women and Black girls," after a City Council committee hearing on the issue in September.

What do Black women think of the Mayor's pledge?

CBS News Chicago checked back in with some of the survivors and experts in the fields of criminology and trauma therapy for their reactions. The women were featured in the series, Investigating Injustice.

A survivor

Tonia Thomas survived a rape, after being drugged at a party in 2021.

"I remember trying to get out, get out of the restroom, but I couldn't," Thomas said.

Thomas' turmoil has followed her for years. 

"What happened to me, it won't go away," she said.

So Thomas said she got away, "from the assault, the aftermath."

She recently moved to Hawaii. 

"It's just the happiest place I think I can be," Thomas said, "If I ever forget where I am or how I got here, I just come to the window."

Thomas believes the task force should feature voices like hers.

"I feel like they should be listening to the victim," she said.

That is something she said did not happen to her when she was assaulted. Thomas felt abandoned by police and prosecutors at the time.

"All they said was just at the time, at this time, and they would not be pressing charges. It was just like, 'OK, thanks for the report. Thanks for reporting,'" Thomas said. "So what can we do to get past that step? That's what this task force should be looking at."

An advocate

Gaby Molden-Carlwell works with women like Tonia Thomas. She is a trauma therapist at Resilience.

"I feel like that task force needs to have not only the police, but social workers, people who are Literally in the field, doing the work," said Molden-Carlwell.

She is also a survivor, the victim of sexual assault by a family member when she was just 11 years old. For her, the task force must include a focus on educating young people.

"it's teaching them what good touch looks like, what bad touch looks like, what consent looks like," said Molden-Carlwell. "When we go into these schools, we tell them about programs like Resilience, and how to use their voice, and what secrets look like—because secrets for us, equal danger."

An expert

Geneva Brown is a former professor of criminology and now works on criminal justice reform.

Her suggestion for the task force is a bit unorthodox. 

"Frankly, offenders talking to people about why they commit these crimes," Brown said. "What is the incentive? What are the motives to make you reduce yourself to having to challenge someone for their own property?"

Brown appreciates the Mayor's promise, but has a concern. 

"I applaud his first initiative," she said. "I just hope that we don't study it to death or have an unfunded task force."

Brown points to the Commission on Black Girls in Columbus, Ohio as a model.

After a pilot program, it became part of a city department with a more than $300,000 budget this year and next.

Brown hopes a Chicago task force will be taken just as seriously to stem a systemic problem, the disproportionate impact of crime on Black women which was revealed in the CBS News Chicago investigation.

"This is an ongoing issue that has gone on for the past 30 years that has only come to light in the last one to two years," Brown said. "But also, this has to be an ongoing, continual task force that goes on beyond hopefully whatever administration is in office for this to be taken seriously," said Brown.

Thomas is hopeful as well.

"I think the concept of the task force is excellent. It's something that's definitely needed," she said. "Looking at the numbers, looking at us being a minority, but being the majority of crimes. It's unfathomable."