Chicago violence! Over and over we hear about the insane gun violence in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune reported on October 4, 2016, that the yearly total of shooting victims stood at 3,291. Some say the handful of neighborhoods on the south and north sides of the city that account for most of the shooting victims are virtual war zones. Others contend that is not so, yet statistics confirm a horrible reality -- gun violence in Chicago is out of control.
When you compare Chicago's homicide rate to that of other big cities in the country – New York and Los Angeles for example – it tops the list. Yet, New Orleans, St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore and Newark all have higher rates when you drill down the data per capita. Still, Chicago draws the most attention.
Chicago averages nearly 82 shootings per week. The 500th homicide of 2016 happened over Labor Day weekend. And, 2016 is the deadliest year in two decades when it comes to homicide rates. In just one weekend in August 2016 alone, there were eight gun-related homicides and 64 non-fatal shootings.
(Amanda Wills and Sergio Hernandez. “500 homicides. 9 months. 1 American city. CNN. September 8, 2016.)
No simple report will do justice to answering this question; however, some obvious factors contribute greatly to gun violence in Chicago. May these revelations dispel simple speculation as to why some areas of Chicago are so violent.
Guns
Although Chicago has strict gun laws,
Chicago's gun violence problem is more complicated. Sixty percent of
the guns used in shootings were purchased out of state.
"We border Indiana and Wisconsin,
which have really lax gun laws," Chicago Police Superintendent
Eddie Johnson said. "We know that people from Chicago go across
the border, fill up gym bags with illegal weapons from gun shows and
things of that nature and they come back here and sell them to the
gangs."
It has been reported that gun violators
weren't getting adequately punished – thus, a need for
repercussions from the justice system exists. According to the
Chicago Reporter, thousands of cases involving weapons
violations were thrown out in Chicago's Cook County criminal courts
between 2006 and 2013, and more felony cases involving guns were
thrown out than any other kind of case,
For this reason, Illinois Governor
Bruce Rauner recently signed a new gun control law that imposes
harsher penalties on those who bring in guns from out of state to
sell and do not have gun-owner ID cards.
(Emily Shapiro and Alex Perez. “Dozens of Shootings in 1 Weekend: A Look at Chicago's Gun Problem.” ABC News. July 07, 2015.)
Big Gang Presence
From 1991 to 2004, gangs were behind the biggest chunk of killings in Chicago – one-third of them, according to the Chicago Police Department. Police say the gangs are mainly contained to a handful of pockets on the city's South and West sides.
Gang violence was trailed by armed robberies, which made up less than one-tenth of the killings, the police department said.
It is evident that street gang violence has been a continuing problem in Chicago since the late 1960's. The Department of Justice confirms that street gang-motivated crime is not random. In Chicago. it occurs in specific neighborhoods and is concentrated in limited time periods. While some street gangs spend much of their time defending or expanding their turf, others are actively involved in the business of illegal drugs.
Gang
history going back to the 1990s shows that some street gangs
specialized in incidents of expressive violence while others focused
on instrumental violence. For example, the Vice Lords and BGDN were
much more involved in acts of instrumental violence (such as
possession or sale of drugs), while the Latin Disciples, Latin Kings,
and smaller gangs specialized in acts of expressive violence (such as
turf defense). Mostof the criminal activity in smaller street gangs
centered on representation turf defense. The most lethal street gang
hot spot areas are along disputed boundaries between small street
gangs.
Studies
show shootings are disproportionately concentrated in
Chicago's most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Research from the Crime
Lab at the University of Chicago found that of the total of 510
people were murdered in Chicago during 2008. Nearly half of the
victims were between the ages of 10 and 25, and the vast majority
were male. This dramatic over-representation of both young males and
firearms is not new. Low-income, gang-involved young minority males
are vastly overrepresented as both victims and offenders of gun
violence. This violence has led to the killing of so many innocent
bystanders and kept residents shut inside their homes out of fear.
(Roseanna Ander et al. “Report: Gun Violence Among School-Age Youth in Chicago.” Crime Lab University of Chicago.)
While over the past 50 years, society
has made far less progress in understanding how to protect our
citizens from gun violence (and violence more broadly), it has
learned about how to protect citizens from other serious threats to
life and health like heart disease.
University of Illinois at Chicago physician Gary Slutkin says gun violence epidemic is exactly the right word. He argues that violence is a contagious disease. Slutkin says, “For example, you’re exposed to flu, you’re more likely to get flu. You don’t actually get flu without being exposed. Same thing for T.B., cholera and violence.”
He continues, “I mean, why does someone who was exposed to child abuse, abuse their own kids? That would be the person who you would think would be least likely to do it, because he knows how bad it was. But, in fact, he’s picked up this contagious set of behaviors.”
(Judy Woodruff. “Why Chicago hasn’t yet escaped an epidemic of gun violence. PBS News Hour. September 07, 2016.)
So, Dr. Slutkin treats gun violence as a contagious disease. He founded Cure Violence, now an international effort that trains former gang members and felons to stop violence in its tracks, violence interrupters. He says these interrupters are actually health workers trying to cool people down and buy precious time.
Other Contributing Factors
The Crime Lab from the University of
Chicago also reported mental health problems, alcohol use, economic
conditions, and particularly school failure as contributing factors
to Chicago gun violence.
(a) Mental Health
(Linda A. Teplin et al. “The Northwestern Juvenile Project: Overview.” Northwestern Juvenile Project. U.S. Department of Justice. Study conducted 1995-1998.)
Many
youth were found to have more than one disorder. 57 percent of
females and 46 percent of males met diagnostic criteria for two or
more disorders at baseline. Detained youth were more likely to have
substance use disorders comorbid with attention-deficit/hyperactivity
disorder or other behavioral disorders than any other combination of
disorders. Participants with a major psychiatric disorder (e.g.,
major depression, mania, psychosis) were significantly more likely to
also have a substance use disorder than were those without major
psychiatric disorders substance use disorders are also common; more
than 21.
(b) Alcohol Use
Although media frequently links youth
gun violence to hard drugs, analysis of data on Chicago homicides
from the Illinois Violent Death Reporting System found that only 3
percent of victims ages 10 to 24 tested positive for recent cocaine
or opiate use.13 In contrast, 35 percent of homicide victims had
alcohol in their blood at the time of death, often at levels above
legal thresholds defined for alcohol intoxication.
The study also comes on the heels of a recent report by University of California, Riverside sociologist Robert Nash Parker, that found limiting access to alcohol could reduce community violence.
“You’re adding alcohol to an already volatile situation in a distressed community,” said lead investigator Marie Crandall, M.D., associate professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
“If you light a match in the rainforest and throw it on the ground, the match will go out. If you light a match in a haystack in the middle of a drought, a powder keg will go off. These neighborhoods are powder kegs because they are challenged with high rates of unemployment, faltering economies, loss of jobs and institutionalized poverty and racism.”
(“Gun Violence And
Alcohol: Study Finds Proximity To Liquor Store Increases Chances Of
Being Shot In Chicago.” The Huffington Post.
September 20, 2013.)
(Aamer Madhani. “Chicago's murder rate soars 72% in 2016; shootings up more than 88%.” USA Today. April 01, 2016.)
But,
of course, violence poses key obstacles to the economic vitality
of low-income communities. Businesses are more likely to close early
in higher-crime neighborhoods. Even more importantly, high crime
rates deter business investment, particularly the creation, growth,
or relocation of service-related establishments that would be a
valuable source of employment to lower-skilled workers.
(Robert Greenbaum and
George Tita. “Violent Crime Surges Hurt Businesses Most in
Low-Crime Areas.” Urban Studies. 2004.)
Communities in the West Side district
have long struggled under the weight of low employment and poverty.
Past census data show that far more households in the West Garfield
Park neighborhood fell below the poverty level than the citywide
average and that its unemployment rate was at times as high as 25
percent.
(d) School Failure
Crime Lab's analysis suggests that a
critical turning point seems to occur as children approach middle
school age, when both arrest and dropout rates begin to increase. The
Crime Lab cites the need for early interventions (as young as age 10)
and help for young people to navigate the highest-risk years (through
the early 20s). There is need to engage youth in positive, prosocial
activities provided by schools and other organizations.
(Susan Saulny. “Focus in
Chicago: Students at Risk of Violence. The New York Times.
October 06, 2009.)
National Public Radio's This American Life program did a two-part show focused on one Chicago school – Harper High School in West Englewood, a poverty-stricken and virtually all-Black neighborhood on the city's South Side. Harper has just over 500 students. In the year leading up to the 2012-13 school year, 29 current and former students were shot. Eight of the 29 died.
"[I]t's hard not to think," This American Life host and producer Ira Glass said at the opening of the program, "that if you grafted these facts onto another high school in a wealthier place, maybe a suburb...in other places, that would be national news, right? We would all know the name of that school."
Commonality of Factors
The former White House chief of
staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, has been struggling to get a grip
on the violence in Chicago.
President Obama, himself, also nodded to the difficulty in getting gun control legislation passed at the state level, while making the case for a vote on a federal gun control package.
But, Obama also acknowledged that "no law or set of laws can prevent every senseless act of violence."
"When a child opens fire
on another child, there's a hole in that child's heart that
government can't fill – only community and parents and teachers
and clergy can fill that hole," he said.
“If a child grows up with parents who have work, and have some
education, and can be role models, and can teach integrity and
responsibility, and discipline and delayed gratification – all
those things give a child the kind of foundation that allows them to
say, 'my future, I can make it what I want.'"
--President Barack Obama
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