The verdict in the Zimmerman trial has brought new attention to the large numbers of young, black people who are victims of homicide, particularly gun homicide. Chicago is frequently mentioned in this context, invariably disparagingly. As one gauge of the problem you might be interested in taking a look at a feature over at the Sun-Times, Homicide Watch.
Victims, suspects, and a map of locations where homicides took place can be viewed. If you select “Victims” (linked above) and sort the results in descending sequence by date, it’s apparent that the most recent 100 victims are overwhelming black and mostly young. By my eyeball-o-meter, more than 90% of the victims are black and, if the FBI’s statistics on homicides hold good, so are their killers.
Rather than focusing on one dead black kid in Florida who died senselessly, why not think about the black kids killed every day here? Most of their murderers are black, too. Not interesting enough?
I’ve already given my explanation for the wave of homicides here. I think the City has, in essence, given up on these neighborhoods. I think that the people there don’t trust the police, generally for pretty good reason. I think that young men are turning to gangs for social and economic support and for protection. I think that gangs are creating their own version of law and order in the streets there and the result is a lot of dead black kids.
In Chicago and the other US cities, a dead young black man has no monetary or political value. The race hustlers do not have anybody to shakedown, and the liberals do not have anybody to call racist.
Trayvon Martin is only valuable as a corpse in a non-minority community. If he were dead in Miami, he would be worthless – just another dead young black male. No marches, no TV special reports, no Justice Department investigation, and not ONE DAMN LIBERAL gives a sh*t.
“not ONE DAMN LIBERAL gives a sh*t.”
Other than the thousands who are working to try to stop the killings. If nothing else, you might consider reading Harold Pollock who has spent a lot of time on this issue, looking beyond Chicago to investigate violence and killings in other poor areas. Of course we already know how to stop many/most of these killings. Decriminalize or legalize drugs.
Dave- The level of killings was much higher in the 90s. Was there the same level of angst over those killings then as seems to exist now? What has really changed since then? Do you think the city cared about those neighborhoods then and not now? What changed?
Steve
@steve
Other than the thousands who are working to try to stop the killings. …
Thus, freeing up the millions of liberals, especially the white variety, to ignore the problem while calling everybody racists.
… Decriminalize or legalize drugs.
Sorry, this is not the solution. The War on Drugs is the federal involvement in drug crimes. Legalization is another matter. As I have stated before, the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty are a caustic combination.
Tossing a few dollars at poverty does not fix the problem, and legalizing drugs will not fix the problems. It does fix the problem of being bothered by the problem.
It’s pretty hard to ferret out the exact statistics per 100,000 population. I do know that the clearance rate has cratered—from 70% in the 1990s to 60% or thereabouts now, substantiation of my point about the police having given up on the neighborhoods.
Between the 2000 federal census and the 2010 federal census Chicago’s population dropped about 10%. IIRC the black population dropped sharply while the Hispanic population rose. That means that it’s possible for the absolute number of homicides to drop while the homicides per 100,000 black population doesn’t change a great deal. I just don’t know.
Ah, yes. Here it is. 90% of those who left the city were black. I’d need to sit down and run the numbers but it looks to me as though the number of homicides could have dropped since the 1990s even as the black homicide rate increased.
Not interesting to whom? To the media.
The media tell stories. Stories need heroes and villains. Stories need characters. They need suspense. They need mystery. They need a manageable time frame – neither too short nor too long. The overwhelming majority of crime stories — either never solved or pled out – lack essential elements.
Why worry about one black kid in Florida? Why worry about one missing blond girl, or a runaway bride with the googly eyes, or some female astronaut who may have worn diapers, or a Congressman tweeting his wiener pix? When you stop thinking that the job of the media is to give us the news and accept that they see their job as telling stories that will attract eyeballs, it’s easy to understand.
Speaking as somebody who grew up surrounded not only by politicians but by newspapermen (for example, my dad had been an editor of the Star and Sel Pepper, city editor for the Post-Dispatch, was a close family friend), it’s possible for something both to be a story and news. That may be one of the differences between the reporters of days gone by and the J-school hacks of today—the ability to see the story in the news.
@steve, I think there is a lot of anxiety right now about concealed carry becoming the law in Illinois. Its the last of all of the states. It was ordered by the federal court of appeals. Its become a political football. And I think its why the national guard was called upon. I personally don’t think most gun regulation matters one way or the other. The problems are deeper.
Otherwise, I think Chicago’s murder rate is not dropping as much as NYC & LA, as I think Dave might have evidenced in an earlier post. Perhaps national expectations are downgrading Chicago?
The number of homicides in Chicago peaked in 1974 at 970. The complicating factor is that Chicago’s population was nearly 30% higher then with its black population more than proportionally larger.
The number of homicides is higher now than it was in 1965 despite a significantly larger population then. Consequently, although the homicide rate per 100,000 has declined relative to 1990, it’s risen relative to 1960.
It’s possible if editors and publishers want to allocate time and resources and risk coming up with nothing. I don’t think the J schools are the problem so much as the business schools. When news is about nothing but profit you get nothing but the cheap, easy stories. See also the movie business.
Here’s where the J-schools come in. They promulgate the idea that journalism is a profession like being a physician or lawyer rather than a craft like being a plumber or carpenter or printer, with pay expectations to match. And they saddle their grads with debt so they need more money just to live and pay off their debts.
Paying reporters more means you can afford to pay fewer of them. That changes how stories are covered and where the regular beats are.
The economics of newspapers is that small, local independents are doing fine when they can keep salaries under control and big, conglomerates, constructed by leverage and financed by debt, are having a hard time.