The Chicago Tribune is running a series on murder here in “the nation’s murder capital.” (Gary has a murder rate three times as high; Detroit’s is twice as high. Chicago had the largest number of murders, even though it trails NYC and LA in population.)
Police have long recited the mantra that most murders are the result of a deadly trinity that runs rampant in Chicago: street gangs, guns and drugs. Concerned citizens, from parents and priests to social workers and professors, lay heavy blame on a violent culture that has gone unchecked, nurtured by poverty and a collapsed social structure. Reformed gang members say the city’s strong sense of neighborhood identification fuels territorial battles and allegiances to gangs. Others even point to the city’s colorful history of gangsters and rampant corruption.
The accompanying map shows how strikingly localized the crime is here, though. The massive redevelopment of public housing (I added blue notations for points of interest and public housing projects) has dispersed gang activity, and thus murders, from those sites and into adjacent neighborhoods.
Demographic figures seem to back up the police assertion that the murder is highly concentrated sociogeographically. Those killed are demographically almost identical to those suspected of doing the killing. Both are (+/- 3%) 90% male, 75% Black and 20% Hispanic. 72.6% of victims and 86.8% of accused have prior arrest records. 64% of victims were between 17 and 30. 80% of murders were committed with guns.
west north 
