Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Hampton University
English 102-11
CHICAGO VIOLENCE 2
Abstract
Chicago is a well-known city around the world. It houses millions of people in many different
communities around the city. The city thrives off its reputation and draws many movie shootings
and celebrities to visit. However, Chicago also boasts a large crime rate. This literature review
will inform the reader of what Chicago natives and people who reside in the city think of what
causes their city to have such a high murder rate. Statistical data and journal articles will
contribute to the further research of what makes Chicago such a high crime zone.
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Chicago is a well-known city around the United States, The Windy City as some like to
call it. The food, opportunity, sports, breath taking skyline, and many other things are what has
contributed to the media presence that Chicago receives throughout the nation. However,
Chicago has been receiving plenty of air time on every major news channel, but not for any of
the reasons previously stated. Chicagos violence has been happening at an alarming rate
throughout the past decade. Just recently in 2016, the city had, 762 murders just in 12 months
(CNN, 2017)! To put that into perspective, that is on average 63.5 murders in one month and
roughly 2.11 people dying a day, every day that month. This alarming rate has caused the
nickname of the city to change from, The Windy City, to now Chiraq.
With the alarming rate that violence is happening in Chicago, one is only left to wonder,
What is the cause and why is it so common?. Many people have been unable to decipher this
question, and blame the cause on many different things. Based on responses through different
media outlets, many residents like to believe that the increase in violence is due to gang
affiliation, family complications, or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time. However, in
order to really get an understanding to form a conclusion on this matter, a couple of sub
1. How does the prevalence of violence throughout the city affect the psyche of the
2. Who is affected the most by the up rise in crime around the city?
city?
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The following literature review will: provide a backstory of living life in one of the most
violent cities in the country and also an analysis of what residents believe to be the cause in the
How does the prevalence of violence throughout the city affect the psyche of the youth who
the article written by CNN, One child age 16 or younger is murdered in the city every week on
average (CNN, 2017). This stunning statistic is one of the many representations of what young
people have to face growing up in a city filled with crime. It has also led to younger children
being in possession of weapons as they feel that it will keep them safe. In the song, Murder to
Excellence by rappers Jay Z, a Brooklyn, NY native and Kanye West, a Chicago, Illinois native,
stunning lyrics concerning this matter are voiced. West goes on to say, No shop class but half
the school got a tool, And a "I could die any day"-type attitude (Watch the Throne, 2011). The
idea behind this lyric is that in school there was no type of shop class otherwise known as
woodshop which would require tools, but everybody has a tool. In Chicago, the slang word for a
In the study done in 2011 by Dexter Voisin and his colleagues (2011), 32 young
adolescents who were faced with gun violence tragedies all were affected in different ways.
Through the interviews he discovered that no matter the gender, there were four more commonly
used coping mechanisms that the youth handled the events personally. The said copings were:
getting through (acceptance), Getting along (self-defense), Getting away (avoidance), and
Getting back (confrontation). The most common coping mechanism that females would use was
getting away or avoidance, where they just didnt want to talk or think about what had happened
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at all. Males however, were more so using the mechanism of getting along or self-defense. The
meaning behind this mechanism is that the youth would look out to surround themselves by
people who would help them in case a tragedy were to present itself to them. The people that
they often chose to surround themselves by often happened to be gang members, who did not
serve as positive role models to young men who were trying to avoid violence. (See Figure 1)
Figure 1. A graph with the results of a survey given to Chicago natives with the question: Do you
believe that the prevalence of violence in the city is affecting the psyche of youth throughout the
city?
The one mechanism that was common between both genders was getting through or
acceptance. Gun violence happens so much throughout the city that to many it seems to be a
normality. Most adolescents who were interviewed did not feel any new pain in hearing of new
gun violence, because many have taken on the attitude that Chicago native rapper Herbert Wright
(Lil Herb) presents in one of his songs, I got so many fallen loved ones, n**** out here
painless.
Who is affected the most by the up rise in crime around the city?
The violence in Chicago has always been bad, but record numbers have recently been hit
Figure 2. A graph that gives the yearly crime rates of Chicago from 2001-2016.
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Based on the graph pictured above, the number of murders in the given years have always
hovered around the 400-600 toll. This can be viewed as being rather high for a city, however,
based on the trend presented, it is considered normal for Chicago. This past year, 2016, Chicago
saw a record breaking and very violent year with a death toll of 762 people due to murder.
People of younger ages have been the forerunners in contributing to this statistic (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. A graph representing the murder percentages by age every 5 years from 2010.
As represented by the graph, ages 15-24 are the age groups that are affected most by gun
violence in Chicago regardless of race. The youth are said to be the future of tomorrow, but how
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can they be the future if they are unable to see it. In seeking to analyze a probable way to
dwindle down the violence in Chicago, a survey was conducted (see Figure 4).
Figure 4. Results from a survey asking the question: What do you think can be done to in an
effort to minimize the crime in the city?
The results of the survey show that many residents of the city do not believe that the
violence can be changed. The youth of the city will continue to have a target on their backs and
living their life with their heads on the swivel, until a change in the positive direction takes place.
Unfortunately, the sad truth of who commits the most crimes in the city are African-
Figure 5. Results from a survey with the question: What ethnic group do you believe is
responsible for violence in Chicago the most?
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Chicago natives are witnessing every day their brothers and sisters maliciously killing
each other with little remorse. With the bulk of the crime being on the south side of Chicago,
which houses African-American people and Hispanics as the majority, it is sad to say that there
are many instances that minorities are killing their own. If there is no way that people of the
same race can get along with each other, how do they expect the races that they are oppressed by
to give them the respect that they deserve? It is evident that to change the demographic of crime
in the city, the same race crime has to take a major downfall.
Conclusion
Chicago will always be a major city in the United States. It will continue to attract thousands of
tourists from all around the world to experience all of the sight-seeing and wonderful food.
However, when tourists begin to hear of the war like murder numbers from different media
outlets, it begins to give the city a negative reputation. A reputation that can be very difficult to
turn around. Unless the murder rates in the city make a huge change in a positive way in the
References
Carter, S., & West, K. (2011). Murder to Excellence [MP3]. Roc-A-Fella Records.
Edwards, P. (2017). What ethnic group do you believe is responsible for violence in Chicago the
most?, What do you think can be done to in an effort to minimize the crime in the city?,
Do you believe that the prevalence of violence in the city is affecting the psyche of youth
throughout the city? [Chart]. In Survey. Survey Monkey.
Hughes, L., & Short, J. (2014). Partying, Cruising, and Hanging in the Streets: Gangs, Routine
Activities, and Delinquency and Violence in Chicago, 1959-1962. Journal Of
Quantitative Criminology, 30(3), 415-451. doi:10.1007/s10940-013-9209-y
Patton, D., Sodhi, A., Affinati, S., Lee, J., & Crandall, M. (2016). Post-Discharge Needs of
Victims of Gun Violence in Chicago. Journal of Interpersonal Violence,
088626051666954. doi:10.1177/0886260516669545
Voisin, D. R., Bird, J. D., & Hardestry, M. (2011). African American Adolescents Living and
Coping With Community Violence on Chicagos Southside . Journal of Interpersonal
Violence, 26(12), 2483-2498. Retrieved March 19, 2017, from
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0886260510383029
Wills, A., Hernandez, S., & Baldacci, M. (2017, January 2). 762 murders. 12 months. 1
American city. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/02/us/chicago-murder-rate-2016-visual-guide/
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