Murder Rate in Chicago (Essay Sample)

Murder Rate in Chicago
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Institution affiliation
Murder Rate in Chicago
Abstract
Over the previous decades, the United States has displayed an unexpected drop in crime. Chicago, while frequently depicted as a violent city, has displayed sustained drops in murder rates and ferocious crimes in general during the present days. By use of the annual crime information, this report concisely describes the homicide trends in Chicago from the year 1965 to the present days. Although Chicago has experienced a momentous decline in the homicide rates and the present day levels of murder crime are at their lowest levels, the number of homicide crimes are in fact comprised of the highest percentage of murders in the past twenty years. This report documents this historical trends and discusses future direction.
Introduction
The Chicago Police Department’s has been tracking crimes in Chicago since the commencement of the twentieth century. The records of these crimes are stored in databases that contain the murder cases that happened in Chicago. Each murder was labeled by where it occurred, the time it occurred, type of weapon used, the motive, victim and offender demographic information and the number of lawbreakers, among others. The databases are updated as the murders occur and if additional information pertaining a specific incident recorded. These Databases are used to examine the characteristics of murder trends in Chicago from their commencement to the present days. The purpose of this report was to examine the murder rates within a historical background so as to understand better the contemporary rates as well as the longer patterns.
Discussion
Chicago has seen a significant rise in violent crime since the late 1960s. Homicides in the city rose to a higher level in 1974, with a total of 970 cases of homicides when the overall population of the city was above three million, this signified a murder rate of 29 murders per 100,000 citizens. Additionally, in 1992, the murder rate was higher than that of 1974, with 943 homicides when Chicago had a population of less than 3 million, this signified a murder rate of 34 murders per 100,000 citizens. However, after the year 1992, murder counts reduced to 641 homicides. In 1999, Chicago’s population was at 2,799,000, so the decline was sluggish, but still indicated progress. Moreover, in 2002, the homicide rate in Chicago were few but compared with Los Angeles or New York they were still high. Conferring to the 2005 murder report that was released by the Chicago Police Department, the homicide clearance percentage dropped to 60% in 2003 from 70% in 1991. Furthermore, during the summer months the rates of homicide are higher and over 70% of the homicides occur between 7PM and 5AM. Additionally, the proportion of the homicide offenders who were between 14 to 16 years have decreased to 6% in 2005 from a high of 15% in 1994 ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "DOI" : "10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.08.006", "ISBN" : "0143-6228", "ISSN" : "01436228", "abstract" : "This paper studies the relationship between homicide rate and socioeconomic factors at community area level in Chicago from 1960 to 1995. Most of prior studies of social disorganization theory are based on cross-sectional spatial regression or longitudinal studies. This research integrates space and time in testing social disorganization theory. First, exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) is used to examine dynamic spatial patterns of these indicators. This investigation justifies the estimation of homicide rates across community areas through panel-data models that extend to include spatial lag and spatial error autocorrelation. ?? 2010 Elsevier Ltd.", "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Ye", "given" : "Xinyue", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" }, { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Wu", "given" : "Ling", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "Applied Geography", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "2", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2011" ] ] }, "page" : "800-807", "title" : "Analyzing the dynamics of homicide patterns in Chicago: ESDA and spatial panel approaches", "type" : "article-journal", "volume" : "31" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=bca2ef4c-8f31-4c8a-9c82-bd069b6a6918" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Ye & Wu, 2011)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Ye & Wu, 2011)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Ye & Wu, 2011)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Ye & Wu, 2011).
Also, 60% of offenders and 40% of victims were between 17 and 25 years of age. Furthermore, 93% offenders and 85% victims were male, African American offenders and victims were 77.4% and 76% respectively, Hispanic victims were 18.3% and offenders were 17.3%, and the white victims and offenders were 5.6% and 5.3% respectively. The black homicide victimization rate was around 34 murders per 100,000 citizens; the white rate was at three murders per 100,000 citizens, and Hispanic was at the rate of 11 homicides per 100,000 citizens. In addition, 88% of the offenders and 75% of the fatalities had a past arrest history. For another thing, 11% of the victims due to the armed robbery were women, 50% of Native victims were women, and 7% of gang-related fatalities were women. The armed robbery fatalities proportion that were above the age of 45 years was 31% while 29% of the domestic related homicides were carried out by females. White robbery-murder offenders from the year 1991 to 2005 consisted of 4.3%, while the victims were 19.2%, whereas in 2005 the victims of gang-related homicides included 93% male, 3% white, 26% Hispanic, and 70% black. Additionally, the offenders included 99% male, 3% white, 20% Hispanic, and 76% African American. Domestic related homicides victims comprised of 11% white, 10% Hispanic, and 79% African American, while the armed robbery homicide victims included 89% male, 19% white, 13% Hispanic, 68% African-American. Lastly, the offenders of armed robbery homicides comprised 93% male, 4% white, 9% Hispanic, and 87% African American. The homicide rates in Chicago differ widely dependent on the neighborhood. Numerous neighborhoods situated on the southern side are often filled with street gangs, less educated, poor and prevailed with African Americans. The neighborhoods of Englewood which is near to the southern side and Austin which is on the west side have murder rates that are ten times greater than other parts of Chicago. The violence present in these places has had a detrimental effect on the educational performance of teenagers in schools, along with an augmented liability for school districts that require psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors to assist the children to deal with the ferocity ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "DOI" : "10.1177/0734016808320693", "ISBN" : "0734016808", "ISSN" : "0734-0168", "abstract" : "Following the national pattern, homicide clearance rates in Chicago have continuously declined for several decades. This study focuses on the influence of changing characteristics of homicide events on the decline in homicide clearances. Most previous studies are not suitable to address the decline issue because of their methodological limitations. The decline is a longitudinal process and a cross-sectionally identified relationship could be a temporary association at a particular point in time. The current study investigates all the key relationships with two longitudinal methods: pooled cross-sectional time series and ARIMA and by con- trolling for community-level factors. The results show that homicides involving concomitant felony, Latino victims, strangers, and vehicle body location are significantly and consistently related to the decline, whereas other previously identified predictors do not remain significant over time. The current paper also explains how effects of homicide event variables can be translated into actions and help improve clearance outcome.", "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Yili Xu", "given" : "", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "Criminal Justice Review", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "4", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2008" ] ] }, "page" : "453-479", "title" : "Characteristics of Homicide Events and the Decline in Homicide Clearance: A Longitudinal Approach to the Dynamic Relationship, Chicago 1966-1995", "type" : "article", "volume" : "33" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=4b992e4f-356d-4ad8-ad79-1fa97ef4baef" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Yili Xu, 2008)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Yili Xu, 2008)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Yili Xu, 2008)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Yili Xu, 2008).
The homicide rate in Chicago has displayed a divergent downward trend in the current years. From the year 2000 to 2010, the sum of homicides in Chicago has declined to 436 from 631, this is so far the lowest rate for Chicago since the year 1965. From June 27th, 2011, the murder figures were at 159 in Chicago, if the number remains the same for the remaining months, it will translate to 318 homicides, and this will become the lowest number Chicago has seen in decades. Nevertheless, because the rate of violent crimes has been displayed to upsurge in the course of the summer, this might not be the situation. Ever since 2002, the rate has progressively declined, with exclusions to this being in the year 2006 which saw a 4% increase to 467 from 447, and in 2008 where a 15% increase was noticed, from 443 to 510. Captivatingly, this pattern ass...