One key talking point tonight, crime and safety. It's certainly a topic many politicians often bring up when they mention Chicago. But what a resonance that officials believe the city really needs. Do they think Kamala Harris's policies could make a noticeable difference, not just here in the Windy City, but also across the country? Liz Nagui from our partner station, WLS in Chicago, takes a closer look.

The sanctuary of Saint Sabina on Chicago's South Side has long been a safe haven, a shelter from the violence surrounding streets plagued by generations of gun violence. Father Michael Flager, or simply Father Mike, is a constant here.

The number one victim in this country is our children.

A constant resource and mentor, and a relentless advocate against Chicago's persistent gun problem.

I stand out in the street with it at different times on the corner.

Father Mike has been around long enough to hear the campaign promises on gun crimes and the deafening silence he says often follows.

I've done 140 some children's funerals.

In the heat of Chicago's historically violent summer months, Democrats are now descending on Chicago with a renewed sense of vigor. It's a city Republicans have pinpointed as an example of failures in the criminal justice system.

When you have 20 people killed, 22 people killed in one weekend in Chicago, when you have 88 shootings, It's not even conceivable.

With a former inner-city prosecutor suddenly at the top of the ticket, antiv Violence activists are hoping Vice President Harris elevates that fight for criminal justice reform.

Do you think Do you think that violence prevention and policing is something important enough that you'd like to see it as a platform that they campaign on?

A hundred %.

What do you need to hear from Kamala Harris and Tim Walls on the campaign trail to make you believe believe that this is a priority to them.

I'm hoping to see some of the same things we've seen through the past administration when it comes to the Office of Violence Prevention in the White House, as well as them passing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Building off the Safer Communities Act, billed as the most significant gun legislation in 30 years.

So that was a check on the balances, right?

Vice President Harris oversees the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. It places executive show her prosecuting gun traffickers and improving mental health access to students traumatized by gun violence.

We're dealing with so much gun violence has effect on predominantly young people when you really think about it, who are the future of America. I would like to see Kamala's take on what she's going to put in place, not only to give us the resources and funds we need to create community spaces for violence prevention, but also how we are going to educate law enforcement to work in hand with those community organizations.

Kamala Harris, K-A-M-A-L-A, Kamala Harris, H-A-R-R-I-S, district Attorney of San Francisco.

Elected in 2003, Kamala Harris began her political career as the first person of color to serve as district Attorney in San Francisco. The same was true when she became California's Attorney General in 2011. Keeping with a campaign promise, then DA Harris declined to pursue the death penalty against a man convicted of killing a San Francisco police officer, enraging the law enforcement community. As California California's attorney general, Harris, tried to increase funding to seize illegal guns off the street and lobbied for laws that would help prevent potentially dangerous people from having guns.

Kamala Harris was a prosecutor who was ahead of her time.

Just a few miles from where Kamala Harris will accept her party's presidential nomination. Co County State's attorney, Kim Fox, welcomed a new class of prosecutors. Harris's future policies could affect their work.

I was a little I'm here. You're here. You belong here.

Come on.

Got it. Tell me about what you make of Kamala Harris's prosecutorial record.

This notion of the progressive prosecutor has come about in the last eight or so years. But she was in office almost 20 years ago on a theory of what she called being smart on crime, about making sure that using her limited resources to go after those who are committing violent offenses and finding ways to give people who were deserving second chances offenses for low-level offenses.

As San Francisco's district Attorney, Harris started the Back on Track program, aimed at reducing recidivism for juveniles, and California eventually used it as a model statewide.

Her job was to put people who caused harm in prison, some of those people for a very long time. But she also was one who was thoughtful and realized that not everyone deserved to be in prison, that there were some people who needed rehabilitation, who needed a second chance And so she did that.

You have often been criticized by people here in the city of Chicago of being soft on crime yourself, pretrial release, electronic monitoring. So do you view yourself as soft on crime?

I view myself as the vice president, smart on crime. I find that the narrative of soft on crime tends to happen for people who are different in these roles. Vice President Harris was the first black woman to serve as a district attorney of San Francisco, much like I was the first black woman to serve here in Cook County. I don't find it unironic that some of the same criticisms that she faced many years ago were some of the criticisms that I face now. In the wake of George Floyd's murder, then Senator Kamala Harris supported the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, it would have banned chokeholds, no knock warrants, established a federal database of police misconduct complaints, and cleared the way for the Department of Justice to more easily investigate potential civil rights violations.

Despite Senator Harris's support, the bill was never even brought to the floor for a vote.

There are things you can enact in other ways, like mobilizing the ATF to create a national police database, where we have these huge red flags saying, Hey, this guy was fired from this department, this department, this department, this department. He has this complaint, this complaint, this complaint. He's a no higher. In every police station, there should be a counselor for police officers because the things that they see, if I had to go to therapy for one thing, I see him. I could imagine the things see on a daily basis.

I've seen the consequences of firearms violence up close in the lives of the patients I've cared for over the years.

In June, the federal government declared gun violence a public health emergency, and the centers for Disease Control now labels guns as the number one cause of death for children under 19.

If there is substantial progress that we can point to and say this person cares about us, that would energize even more people to care.

It's not just statistics. For these young activists, it's reality.

I don't expect to live to see the ending of gun violence, but maybe if I have grandkids, they will. If we can continue to have this energy going. So I will hope they don't squad at the moment.

Our thanks to Liz Nagui for.