For nearly a year, blighted neighborhoods around Chicago have been getting a helping hand from the very people who helped erode them with crimes like burglary and drug trafficking.
Since the Cook County Jail’s Neighborhood Restoration Initiative (NRI) program began last December, some 40 inmates have demolished approximately a dozen abandoned homes — which can become magnets for more crime — in distressed Chicago suburbs like Chicago Heights, Ford Heights and Dolton.
Now the program, run by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, is looking to grow.
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