Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Good read from today’s New York Times on the alarming number of young people falling victim to knife violence.

Tidbits:

Knife crime, most often involving weapons like simple kitchen knives, has dominated the headlines in recent weeks, with reports of fresh cases every day. But statistically, the picture is more murky. Violent crime over all has actually decreased by 41 percent from a peak in 1995, according to the British Crime Survey, in which citizens report their exposure to crime.

Yet the survey accounts only for people 16 and older, and evidence suggests that young people in poorer areas are increasingly likely to carry knives, and increasingly likely to use them. The Daily Telegraph, which examined data from three-fourths of the police forces in England and Wales, reported recently that nearly 21,000 people had been stabbed or mugged at knifepoint so far this year.

Here’s an article focusing on the rise of UK hospital admissions for violence, which is mentioned in the New York Times article.

(Luis Torres / Diario de Juarez)

Here is an interesting article on the consequences of the ongoing drug war in Mexico. It looks like the problems we see here aren’t confined to our own backyard.

Chicago Tribune

By now, most of you have read about Mya Lyons, a 9-year-old girl found stabbed to death Monday night. There is no need rehashing the tragic details of her death. When I first heard about it, I felt a bit of deja vu, recalling the murder of 11-year-old Ryan Harris, whose death will be approaching its 10-year anniversary in August.

It is moments like these that the issue of youth violence shows itself to be more than the back and forth we have seen play out in the press this past year. There’s no fight over guns and gun-control in the death of Mya Lyons. There’s no fight over gangs. There’s no fight over after-school programs or jobs in the community. What we have here is something so brutal that it’s unanswerable. And you know what? That’s alright. Everything doesn’t have an easy answer, or what we personally think is an easy answer. Sometimes things are so complex and a shock to our system that all we can do is think. Maybe a little more thinking is a good thing for us, because we have a lot to think about in our communities. The death of this little girl is more than a problem that can be fixed with simple legislation or protest.

This is what is missed in the debate we have about guns and external problems in relation to youths who die by gun violence. Guns are only one component of the problem. Chicago has had a gun ban for more than 25 years. How far has that gotten us to stopping the violence if we see a march or rally to stop it almost every weekend?

Numbers of murders (homicides) in Chicago per year:

• 1990: 851
• 1991: 927
• 1992: 943
• 1993: 931
• 1994: 929
• 1995: 827
• 1996: 789
• 1997: 759
• 1998: 704
• 1999: 641
• 2000: 628
• 2001: 666
• 2002: 647
• 2003: 598
• 2004: 448
• 2005: 449
• 2006: 467
• 2007: 435

That is not to say there is a need for some type of gun control, but we can’t ignore the bigger picture in this story. What is that bigger picture? I don’t know, honestly. I’m still trying to figure that out. I have to admit that sometimes I wonder if it is a battle worth fighting. I’m sure some of you feel the same way at one point or another. A little voice says, “Something will happen whether or not I do anything. So, what’s the point?” But another voice soon follows, rebutting, “If not you, who?” So for those who nonetheless feel outrage or a sinking feeling over this senseless tragedy, remember you are not alone. Remember these words from the poet Aeschylus:

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

Opacity.us

The Chicago Defender recently published a compelling cover story about one mother’s struggle to protect her son from the influence of gangs in their neighborhood. The boy, who is only 10 and learns at a slower pace than other children at his school, is the type of child gang members look for when taking in new recruits. Sadly, this same story is found not only in neighborhoods across Chicago, but in cities across the U.S. Situations like this are no different than the stories we read of children forced to become soldiers in places we consider a world away from ours.

Thanks, Human Goods, for the heads up on this story.

The July/August edition of The Atlantic takes a look the recent rise in violence across the country, focusing on the movement of crime in Memphis, Tennessee. In less than 10 years, Memphis has seen a rise in crime in areas long deemed “safe” or upwardly mobile. Experts pointed to the closing of public housing complexes and migration of its residents as a possible factor, since crime in the areas that housed the complexes has declined.

Lately, though, a new and unexpected pattern has emerged, taking criminologists by surprise. While crime rates in large cities stayed flat, homicide rates in many midsize cities (with populations of between 500,000 and 1 million) began increasing, sometimes by as much as 20percent a year. In 2006, the Police Executive Research Forum, a national police group surveying cities from coast to coast, concluded in a report called “A Gathering Storm” that this might represent “the front end … of an epidemic of violence not seen for years.” The leaders of the group, which is made up of police chiefs and sheriffs, theorized about what might be spurring the latest crime wave: the spread of gangs, the masses of offenders coming out of prison, methamphetamines. But mostly they puzzled over the bleak new landscape. According to FBI data, America’s most dangerous spots are now places where Martin Scorsese would never think of staging a shoot-out—Florence, South Carolina; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Reading, Pennsylvania; Orlando, Florida; Memphis, Tennessee.

Memphis has always been associated with some amount of violence. But why has Elvis’s hometown turned into America’s new South Bronx? Barnes thinks he knows one big part of the answer, as does the city’s chief of police. A handful of local criminologists and social scientists think they can explain it, too. But it’s a dismal answer, one that city leaders have made clear they don’t want to hear. It’s an answer that offers up racial stereotypes to fearful whites in a city trying to move beyond racial tensions. Ultimately, it reaches beyond crime and implicates one of the most ambitious antipoverty programs of recent decades.

If this issue seems familiar to Chicagoans, it should. This has been a source of debate as Chicago public housing buildings are being torn down and its residents sent to neighborhoods just as violent or more violent than the ones they left behind. Medill colleague Erin Halasz recently wrote about this very issue, finding that the decline in murders this past decade has skipped a number of Chicago neighborhoods, or moved to neighborhoods that did not see such violence in the past. The following chart examines homicides in the Grand Boulevard neighborhood (which housed the notorious Robert Taylor homes) and Greater Grand Crossing and Washington Park, just two miles south of Grand Boulevard.

Erin Halasz/Medill

The next question in this murder mystery is how much of this violence has moved farther into the suburbs surrounding Chicago. While homicide numbers for the city of Chicago are easy to find, I’ve had a harder time finding something on homicides in the Chicago metropolitan area. If anybody has any leads on this, feel free to write. If not, investigation time it shall be.

CeaseFire

Where to begin? Today marks one month since the last day of school for Chicago Public School students. The last week of school saw thousands of students go to Soldier Field to hold a rally, speaking out on the gun violence that has taken too many young lives. But with one step forward of people coming together, the unity was dealt a step back when, the night before the rally, 15-year-old Ignacio Montano was shot and killed. Montano had been a student at Kelvyn Park High School.

Since that week, Chicago has seen a chilling rise in shootings that some feared might come with the warmer weather, but didn’t say publically because they already used that excuse when 37 people were shot during one weekend in April. In one month:

Violence across city leaves two teens dead, one hurt

3 teens injured in shootings

1 killed, 1 injured in Lawndale shooting

5 people shot in front of Bellwood home

Teen shot in basement of South Side church

2 children wounded by gunfire on far South Side

Boy shot in Austin neighborhood dies of wounds

Boy, 15, wounded in drive-by shooting on Chicago’s South Side

That sampling only goes back to June 30. Just last night two more teens — 15-year-old Juan Aguilero and 17-year-old Marlow Jones — were shot and killed in separate incidents on the South Side. All that can come to mind is a lyric from an old U2 song that asks, “How long must we sing this song?”

This rash of violence comes on the heels of a report released by the Children’s Defense Fund that says 3,006 children and teens died from gun violence in 2005, the first increase since 1994. According to its press release, the eight children and teens killed by gun violence each day is the equivalent of one Northern Illinois University shooting every 15 hours and one Virginia Tech shooting every four days.

Maybe if all of these shootings happened downtown, like the one at this year’s Taste of Chicago, we might have a little more action beyond preaching to the choir about what needs to be done. Even Chicago’s own presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, offered his two cents on the recent violence at a June 25 press conference.

“We have to put more cops on the street. We have to trace guns that have been used. We have to have improved schools, after-school programs, and summer school programs,” Obama said. “Those are things government can do. Parents have to do their jobs. Fathers have to be home and be apart of their children’s lives”

Not quite breaking news. We have heard this remedy in one variation or another from countless officials, but with little action to back it up. The only difference is Obama had the audacity to make a not-so-subtle plug for his book when giving his answer. It almost sounded like a rehash of his Father’s Day speech on the responsibility of fathers. Maybe it’s time we started giving speeches to those we elect on the responsibilities of being a leader.

I apologize for the recent hiatus.  The new quarter has brought new and more work, which has taken away a lot of my time from this blog.  I will continue posting, but, unfortunately, at a slower pace temporarily.  That doesn’t mean the subject of this blog has waned in importance, because judging by what has been going on in Chicago this summer, it’s more relevant than ever.  For now, I’ll keep writing, and I hope you will keep reading.

Here is a recent e-mail from a local group called the Southwest Youth Collaborative, detailing their events that young people can take part in this summer.

Summer Happenings at the Southwest Youth Collaborative

Peace & Blessings Everyone!

All 40 SWYC adult and youth staff are currently on a 2-day intensive retreat where we are revisiting our 16 year history & core values, building relationships, and visioning and re-energizing for the upcoming summer and future.

A lot will be happening at the SWYC this summer and more info will be posted soon, but we want to let you know about a few programs that are currently open for registration. Keep an eye on our website for program & event updates.

Summer Youth Liberation Institute (SYLI) Freedom School

Based on the Mississippi Freeom Schools of the Civil Rights Movement, the SWYC is offering it’s twelfth annual SYLI Freedom School, an intensive 7-week internship focused on developing intergenerational, multi-racial, and gender balanced leadership for social justice and institutional change around issues affecting youth and families. For the first time, SYLI Freedom School will be partnering with Youth Struggling for Survival (YSS) in Little Village and taking place at Little Village Social Justice High School!

June 30- August 15, ages 14-19
Monday – Friday,
9am – 2pm
@ Little Village Social Justice High School
Registration Contact: Laura Ramirez, 773.476.3534, laura@swyc.org

Vocalo Youth Radio

In Partnership with Chicago Public Radio, the Vocalo Youth Radio program will give teens the opportunity to produce original multi-media work — including audio documentaries, interviews, and personal stories — for broadcast on Vocalo.org (89.5 FM), a new Chicago radio station.

June 30- August 15, ages 14-19
Monday – Friday,
12pm – 4pm
@ SWYC Amandla Center
Registration Contact: Grant Buhr, 773.476.3534 x231, grant@swyc.org
Deadline: June 23rd

Chicago Lawn Writing Workshops

In partnership with the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, publishers of the Journal of Ordinary Thought, adults in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood are invited to join us at the SWYC Amandla center for weekly writing workshops. Classes are free & open to all adults. No experience is necessary.

June 30- August 15,
Mondays
6:30-8pm
@ SWYC Amandla Center
Registration Contact: Nanette, 773.684.2742

Audy Home Event Flyer:

Summer Orientation, Press Conference, & Staff-Youth Basketball Game Orientation for youth participants of all SWYC summer programs will take place on Thursday, June 26th from Noon-2pm at 6400. S. Kedzie Ave. At 2pm, Generation Y Youth Activists will be holding a press conference in front of the Amandla Center to recognize the escalating violence & unrest in Chicago’s neighborhoods and promote the initiatives that SWYC and community allies are taking to offer healthy alternatives. Following the press conference, all are welcome to march together with us to historic Marquette Park where we’ll be having a community BBQ and the much anticipated basketball match-up of the SWYC staff vs. the Coaching Club All-Stars!