Thursday, May 30, 2013

The civic anatomy of murder


DNAInfo has published a remarkable timeline of murders committed in Chicago during 2012.  Each victim is identified by name, age and race, the location of the crime is noted, and where possible links are provided to further information.  Here's one example.




The most interesting thing as far as I'm concerned has been to correlate the race of the victims with the area in which they were killed;  and also, where I have access to such information, to check on the criminal record of the deceased.  Overwhelmingly, the violence is concentrated in predominantly minority areas of the city;  and overwhelmingly, those murdered have not exactly been choirboys or angels themselves.

That's the sort of information that's not politically correct to provide these days.  However, unless and until the city fathers of Chicago and similar urban jungles take it into account and act to clean up those neighborhoods, and keep criminals behind bars where they belong (instead of, for example, killing each others' children in a dispute over stolen property), things aren't going to get any better.

Those of my readers living in urban areas of this sort might wish to take note . . .

Peter

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