In an analysis of the documented homicides in Chicago, Ford Fessenden and Haeyoun Park’s Chicago’s Murder Problem reported a pattern that until recently remained predictable and somewhat within the same range as other cities in the United States. According to the reporters, between 1996 and 2003, there was a steady decrease in the homicide rates before “progress stalled” in 2004 and murder-related crimes remained stable until 2013 (Ford and Park par.1). However, by 2014, Chicago's homicide rates assumed an “upward trajectory,” and the writers presume that they remain so as tensions over race and police conduct continue to plague the city (Ford and Park par.1-2). Thus, emerges the focus of this paper: how have the homicide rates in Chicago changed in the last twenty years and what are the causes of the perceived changes?
Foremost, the relevance in the target period of twenty years revolves around the fact that by last year, Chicago had marked a complete turnabout in its homicide rates. More specifically, August 2016 witnessed the report of ninety homicides in Chicago alone, and the only other time there were such records was in August 1996 (Burnett par.3). Appropriately dubbed Chicago Murders Hit [A] 20-Year High As Gun Violence Spikes, Sara Burnett’s article goes on to inform readers that the nature of the killings evolved to include innocent bystanders as victims. Case in point a man shot while paying his bills at his kitchen table and a woman caught by a stray bullet as she was “pushing her baby in a stroller near a school” (Burnett par.4). In an unmistakable echo of Ford and Park’s findings, as mentioned in the introduction paragraph, Burnett noticed that the number of homicides increased from 2014. In her results, by August 2016, there were four hundred and forty-nine murders, and that reflected an estimated fifty percent increase when compared to the homicides reported to the police by August 2015 (Burnett par.6). Alarmingly, the same reports of August 2016 were eighty percent higher than they were in August 2014 when the total number of homicides that year stood at “just over 400” to mark the least in half a century. That explains the post-2014 upward trajectory that Ford and Park noticed in their study.
With the given facts in mind, one cannot help but wonder what could cause Chicago’s current homicide rates that include reports filed between 1996 and 2016. Interestingly, within the twenty years, the reasons have evolved in nature. For instance, in his 2004 publication of The Deconcentration of Poverty in Chicago, John F. McDonald insisted that the “spatial concentration of urban poverty” went hand in hand with high crime rates in a given target area (2122). In other words, a population with high poverty levels attracts criminal activities as its members seek means of survival outside the traditional work opportunities. Subsequently, homicide rates in the city of Chicago dropped by thirty-six percent between 1992 and 2003 as within the same period, Chicago’s metropolitan area “grew by 11.4 percent” (McDonald 2121). Evidently, as more people relocated to Chicago, poverty levels decreased since new businesses and skills created jobs for the unemployed and increased production respectively.
As one would expect, by 2016, there were more identifiable causes of high homicide rates in Chicago than there were ten years ago. After comparing the instances of gun violence in Chicago to those in New York, Ford and Park found that the “level of armed interaction,” fatal or not, was higher in the former than it was in the latter (par.7). At the same time, the two authors quote one Arthur Lurigio, a criminology professor, asserting that gang wars also play a significant role in the rising rates of homicide in Chicago (par.14). From Latino to African American groups, something as little as a social media spat could escalate to a confrontation against an entire gang or its member as a sign of retribution. Burnett concurs as she writes that the Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the police department “frequently point to gang violence and the easy availability of guns” as the leading causes of murders in the city (par.11).
In conclusion, between 1996 and 2016 Chicago’s homicide rates have been shaky at best. After all, after reflecting a decrease in murder cases, the city’s records remained latent for nine years only to shoot up in less than three. Perhaps guns are to blame, or the mentioned gang wars play a bigger role than the possession of firearms; either way, there is an apparent need for a solution.
Works Cited
Burnett, Sara. “Murders Hit 20-Year High As Gun Violence Spikes.” The Christian Science Monitor, 1 September 2016, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2016/0901/Chicago-murders-hit-20-year-high-as-gun-violence-spikes. [Conservative Source]
Fessenden, Ford, and Haeyoun Park. “Chicago’s Murder Problem.” The New York Times, 27 May 2016, https://nyti.ms/1WpHNei. [Liberal Source]
McDonald, John F. “The Deconcentration of Poverty in Chicago: 1990–2000.” Urban Studies, vol. 41, no.11, 2004, pp.2119–2137. SAGE Publications, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0042098042000268375. [Academic Journal]
