Lt. Jermaine Harris

Jermaine Harris is a 24-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department. He currently serves as a Lieutenant where he develops community-based solutions to violence prevention by collaborating with law enforcement and nonprofit partners. Jermaine is a Chicago native who was born on the city’s West Side and a United States Marine Corps veteran.

Jermaine holds pride in his ability to explore nontraditional policing roles. At the heart of his philosophy to positively impact the lives of Chicagoans is a goal to employ social justice as a violence prevention strategy. Addressing issues of access and equity has yielded positive results in both reducing violence and improving the quality of life for residents in some of the city’s most under-resourced neighborhoods.

Jermaine was selected to serve on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Public Safety Transition Subcommittee. In 2019 he also served on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s transition team for Public Safety and Accountability. He was a working group member of the National Police Foundation Council on Policing Reforms and Race and currently serves as the chairperson of the State of Illinois Racial Profiling Prevention and Data Oversight Board. Jermaine furthers his intention to support root cause solutions as a board member of the Chicago Continuum of Care, a planning body mandated by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that coordinates federal funding for unhoused families and individuals.

Jermaine has also co-founded two premier community organizations: Chicago Westside Police & Youth Sports Conference, a sports-based youth development program that serves 1,000 youth annually and Community Leadership Fellows, a grassroots leadership development program for emerging leaders in Chicago.