Homicides: Victimizers and Victims
Last year in Chicago:
Among the Sun-Times’ findings, based on a review of police and Cook County medical examiner’s reports, court files and interviews:
• The vast majority of those killed in Chicago in the first half of this year — 90 percent —died from a gunshot wound.
• Seventy-two percent were African-American men, their average age 29.
• Four out of five had faced criminal charges in Cook County at some point, mostly for drug offenses — the leading cause of arrest in Chicago.
• Two out of five had drug convictions.
• More than a quarter had been convicted of a violent offense or illegal gun possession.
• Domestic conflicts, many involving mental illness, were involved in at least 24 of the deaths.
• At least four were killed by stray bullets. Others were shot while in the company of people who were targeted.
• The reasons behind other killings remain a mystery to the police.
Chicago Police Department officials say the findings reinforce that most of the city’s gun violence involves a relatively small group of gang members and drug dealers.
Aiming to stem that violence, they’ve been sending teams to meet with gang members flagged as being likeliest to end up a shooting victim or a shooter, based in part on an algorithm that takes into account factors like whether a person has ever been shot, has been convicted of a gun crime, is on parole or has been picked up by the police with anyone who fits such criteria.
“Today’s offender is tomorrow’s victim,” says Christopher Mallette, executive director of Chicago Violence Reduction Strategy, a not-for-profit group that organizes the visits. “They flip jerseys all the time.”
Also a bit out of date, from Wisconsin Public Radio:
As the halfway mark for the year 2014 is nearly here, the tally of gun-related homicides in Wisconsin currently stands at 50. However, there appears to be one constant in these numbers and that’s the criminal records of both the perpetrators and victims.
The two most recent gun deaths involved Kwata Shields, 19, who was shot on Milwaukee’s South Side at a house party last Saturday. The second was Robert Washington, 20, who was allegedly shot by his father on Thursday during an argument in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale.
Almost two-thirds of the fatal shootings in the state have taken place in Milwaukee. The others are scattered around 15 different cities and towns. In almost all cases, however, both victims and alleged perpetrators have criminal records.
Mallory O’Brien, of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission, tracks those numbers for the city of Milwaukee.
“(About) 94 percent of our victims have an arrest history and 93 percent of our suspects have an arrest history,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien said the same percentage is true for non-fatal shooting incidents. There’s been an increase in those numbers as well. By the end of June of last year, there were 204 cases and the count at the six-month mark this year, there have been 248 incidents — a 21-percent increase. She said there’ also been an increase in the number of shooting incidents with multiple victims.
In Baltimore:
But police have also said that some of the city’s residents most vulnerable to violence were also perpetrating violence— including known gang members and others heavily involved in the city’s violent drug trade.
“The driving forces behind the murders have remained the same and we’ve been successful at identifying some of these trigger pullers and getting them off the streets. We’re doing as much as we can with that group of people. It’s a vulnerable group, and I’ve said this a number of times,” Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said in November. “There are both perpetrators on that list and very likely victims on that list.”
The new data on the 2015 victims seems to bolster Davis’ claim that many victims were previously caught up in crime.
According to the analysis, nearly 90 percent of the 344 victims in 2015 had a prior criminal record. Of those, 80.2 percent had a prior drug arrest; 60.8 had been arrested for a violent crime; and half had a prior gun charge.
The average victim had been arrested 13 times before, and 26.2 percent were suspected gang members, the report said.
I stumble on treating alleged shooters as a “vulnerable group.” To me, the real vulnerable group are the other residents in the neighborhoods who are terrorized by the shooters or even get killed in the crossfire. Think of it in terms of people who get lung cancer. The fact that someone smoked 3 packs a day for a few decades doesn’t mean he/she in any way deserved to get lung cancer, but the cases that tend to elicit more sympathy are those of the people who never smoked, and especially the kids.
Now, from what I can tell, there are only two ways to reduce the number of “second-hand smokers.” One is to reduce the number of tobacco users. The other is to keep tobacco users apart from everyone else. With that in mind, what are realistic ways to reduce the carnage in some of our inner cities?
Symbolism;
There are two ways to get rid of people who aren’t beneficial to your interests:
1. kill them off as in Genocide
2. incarcerate them in reservations (aka concentration camps)
Of course why not just do both… in concert.r
Longtooth,
Every few weeks somewhere there is a march to reduce violence, or a call for a ceasefire (that never seems to last) in some neighborhood in America. To my knowledge, all of them in the past few years have been in neighborhoods or areas in which the population is majority Black. The kids getting killed in the crossfire, the women being shot while waiting at the bus stop, or the men being killed on their way to or from work in a case of mistaken identity are just about all Black. So the question rephrases itself. How do we reduce the death rate among innocent Black people who just want to go about their business and live to the end of the day?
So what is your answer? To do nothing because anything we might do would be the same thing as setting up a concentration camp? Seriously? Are you really in the “screw the kids who got caught in the crossfire” camp?
If people have no possibility of a legal job, as happens to former prisoners, you can rest sure that they will seek a solution even if against the law.
Antoni Jaume,
Correct. But still, your comment raises questions:
1. Do arrests cause the violence, or does violence cause the arrests?
2. Is there no agency here? I can think of many situations in which people have few options and end up engaging in activities which are illegal. Black markets in “communist” regimes are a typical example. I also can recall seeing some such illicit behavior in military dictatorships in South America (“jogo do bicho” and other illegal lotteries for instance) . Does participation in this type of illicit activity typically lead to participants engaging in the level of violence we see in, say, parts of Baltimore and Chicago and St. Louis? From what I observed in South America, black market currency exchangers and smugglers seemed to be less likely to engage in violence than the average citizen as the goal was to avoid attracting attention from the junta. Violence, on the other hand, brought extra scrutiny.
3. If you are correct and foreclosing on job opportunities due to past violent behavior is the reason for more violence in the future, what is a reasonable solution? Teamwork and esprit de corps are important components of many jobs, but many (most?) workers would be somewhat reluctant to go out to lunch with the guy two cubicles down if he had a couple of rapes and a murder under his belt. In fact, there might be some added liability to the company should that particular co-worker engage in violent behavior of any sort going forward. So, should companies and co-workers be required to overlook past behaviors? And if so, would such overlooking apply only to imprisonment but not to run-of-the-mill resume fraud such as making up a degree or whatnot?
Of course it’s not the guy with two rapes and a murder under his belt who is affected the most by the employment problem. It is the minor drug offender.
That to one side, the combination of lack of employment and housing discrimination and affordability creates tensions within the black ghettoized culture that surely contributes greatly to violence within the black community. As the old “Catholic liberals” used to say, “if you want peace, then work for justice.”.
Mr. Kimel … For the record,
A. Make owning weapons other than regular hunting rifles (not militarized versions with more than or 5 shell magazines using bolt action) illegal.. i.e. CHANGE 2nd AMENDMENT..
B. Enforce A vigorously
B.1. by house – house searches if necessary… assume any citizen with a fire-arm weapon is like a terrorist… find and eliminate their weapons.
B.2. by paying a hugmungus price to people who voluntarily turn in weapons AND to people who inform police of who has such weapons.
B.3. create conditions and enforce them for weapons mfg’ers and for accessory’s which may or might be used to militarize or create fire-arm weapons .. for example “plans” for weapon making by 3-D printers, for example, among others.
C. Provide full employment for all Blacks and Hispanics (and poor whites) 16 and older at equal or greater than the median income for Whites, adjusted for geographic costs of living..
C1 provide educational training for all trade skills free of charge with pay .. include other skills training as needed in the economy and by capability levels available.
C2. insure each skilled training graduate is immediately employed at their requisite skill — gov’t jobs, gov’t contract jobs, .. for example by a massive new infrastructure building and improvements program, for jobs necessary to mitigate effects of climate change, or private employment .. but the skilled jobs MUST be provided!!! , in proximity or with transportation and housing (for the skilled employee and family members close enough to the job).
C3. Insure such training and jobs do not disappear with recessions or downturns in the economy.
D. Provide for real equal public education and educational facilities for children – pre-school through Collage at affordable costs or with public subsidies to make them affordable to middle class.
D1 Insure Blacks and Hispanics are given priority for educational opportunities and best of breed education, and educators. Modernize inner city schools and facilities, sports programs, the arts (arts/crafts/sculpture, music, instrument bands and orchestras, field trips, plays and opera’s, etc.), STEM emphasis and extra classes and tutors, etc.
E. Improve Housing and Neighborhood Environments
E1 Insure Landlords upgrade low income housing to current codes and normal middle-class standards and with vigorous enforcement. Use temporary public subsidies for landlords who comply, Force foreclosures by eminent domain for landlords who do not comply.
E2 Insure low income housing availability with, publically maintained parks, shopping facilities, and transportation, educational facilities systems to match.
F. Make Cannabis, perhaps other drugs fully legal in any quantity grown anywhere, used anywhere (according to normal “smoking” laws), obtained from any source(s).
F1 Encourage growers and suppliers competition. Allow Cannabis sales in any forms at any and all locations where alcohol, tobacco products and coke-cola and any other non-alcoholic soft drinks are for sale, and where on-site alcohol sales and consumption are already legal … e.g. bars, restaurants, taxed at normal sales tax rates.
G. Release all those now held in jails, prisons, temporary holding cells (awaiting trial and/or sentencing) for any arrests or convictions related to the growing, sale, import, distribution, or use of Cannabis.
G1. Expunge all criminal and misdemeanor records of all such persons. e.g. they were not guilty of any crime or statute.
G2. Release all those incarcerated for possession of a fire-arm or “resisting arrest” and the other related packed-on charges related to or emanating from the Canabis based “suspicion” or related arrests.
G3. Remove all States Rights in regard to item’s G.
Maybe I probably missed a few other things but this is a good start to solving crime in low income districts generally… and in racist ghettos more specifically.
If you want to know what the solutions are for the problems you keep harping about with police methods and enforcement and race related crimes including murders in racist ghetto’s or elsewhere, you can use this list as a starter.
It also tells you why we continue to have these problems… we simply don’t want to pay the costs required to eliminate the problem. Retaining a police state ghetto’s to contain the “problem” to minority races is far lower cost..
Then there’s the ‘moralisms”, Christian belief system to deal with… as another reason we still have the race and crime problem since the Civil War… Jim Crow laws and “separate but equal” interpretations by the Supreme and other courts before them are clear and incontrovertible al testament to this. When the white supremacists (including Federal and State Gov’ts and Teddy Roosevelt’s white christian superiority policies and beliefs not to mention 90% of the rest of the populace systematically and with intent, create and maintain a race underclass for over 100 years you have to expect serious and persistent adverse consequences. Giving it lip service doesn’t fix anything.
Longtooth,
I’m not sure how many of the proposals you made are realistic, as in, “can be implemented.” But OK, thanks for laying our your vision. A few comments:
1. You mention legalizing cannabis and perhaps other drugs. As it happens, I have written posts indicating I favor doing the same. But in light of the quotes I provided above, it is hard to see how that would reduce the homicide rate.
2. You mention this:
What is your preferred method for achieving full employment? Does it apply to middle class white and Asian people who lose their jobs too? The study I linked to some months ago that used essentially all of the people born in Sweden over a period of a few years as a data set indicates that anti-social and criminal tendencies run in families. Will your full employment act ensure that people with severe and violent anger management are employed (whether they want to be or not)? What is the responsibility of their coworkers?
3. You mention:
As it happens, I am a landlord. We rent out properties in various neighborhoods with differing demographics (they range from middle class to lower middle class) in Northeastern Ohio. Some of those properties are on Section 8. We have been told by a Section 8 inspector that we have the nicest and best maintained Section 8 properties in Akron, OH. We achieve this by simple expedient of providing the same level of maintenance at all of our properties. With that, an odd thing I have noticed… our internal data indicates the existence of a strong relationship between the combination of two factors: a) which neighborhood a property is in and b) whether the property is on Section 8 on the one hand, and which and how much work will need to be done to the property when the tenant moves out. (Two notes: 1. This relationship is not race-based. 2. This rule of thumb seems to apply even when the same property goes to or from Section 8.) FWIW, the decision to accept Section 8 is definitely not purely based on business. We are trying to abide by something of a code of ethics. But to be completely honest, we are also frustrated and have given serious thought to ending ending our relationship Section 8 on more than one occasion.
Legalizing cannabis and other drugs would not directly affect the homicide rates (except, perhaps, depriving gangs of a market to fight over) but would eliminate a huge number of convictions so that criminal records would not deny employability to those involved. There really is no silver bullet. It’s a lot of things working together.
JackD,
Again, I favor legalizing pot and most other drugs. But the homicide figures show a lot of vics and perps who have drug priors. Is it the prior arrest that is causing that correlation with violence, the fact that drugs are illegal, or something about the drugs themselves? Long time pot users of I have had acquaintance with seem to eventually graduate from a mellow phase to an angry/scary phase. I don’t know how long that lasts as that tends to be roughly where my acquaintance with said individual ends. Most other drugs don’t even seem to have a mellow phase at all.
One thing’s for sure: the convictions adversely affect employment.