![]() Since the mid-2010s, the Chicago Police Department has attributed a steadily decreasing share of shootings to gangs, The Trace found. “The reality is, gang members are also neighbors, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, employees.” The narrative vs. “Saying the word ‘gang’ makes the victim less sympathetic, it makes the situation less sympathetic, it creates an ‘other,’” says Andrew Papachristos, a professor and researcher at Northwestern University who’s spent years studying the city’s gang networks. And city officials in Virginia are spending thousands on gang identification and intervention. ![]() A county councilmember in Washington State called to reestablish a local gang unit. New York City is promoting gang takedowns as a cure, despite research showing their ineffectiveness. Across the country, gangs have once again become a scapegoat for politicians and police navigating a violent crime resurgence during the pandemic. The Mayor’s Office did not comment on the findings, either, but said Lightfoot was referring to eradicating the root causes of gang violence, not gang members themselves.Ĭhicago isn’t the only city pointing fingers at gangs. Witzburg, who previously worked as a Cook County prosecutor, believes that gangs do contribute to much of Chicago’s violence, but she says it’s a problem that the data can’t back it up.ĬPD declined to be interviewed for this story, despite receiving a dozen requests. But no one in Mayor Lori Lightfoot's office or the police department seems able to put a number on it. How many cops have gotten their vaccine shots? The question has a definite answer. “If in the course of the investigation of these shootings, CPD is looking in its own data for information about whether the people involved were gang affiliated,” says Deborah Witzburg, Chicago’s Inspector General for Public Safety, “it’s looking at the very same data that we identified as profoundly problematic and which the department acknowledged to be problematic.” Read More No one knows how many Chicago cops are vaccinated against Covid-19 People distrust the police after decades of misconduct, so they don’t talk to them all that much, leading to fewer shootings being solved. These interviews, in addition to gang intelligence records and shooting data, reveal that assessing the scope of gang violence in Chicago is difficult, in part because of inconsistent police data and the changing nature of gangs, which have fractured. More than a dozen were current and former gang or clique-affiliated residents. The Trace spoke with nearly 30 researchers, city officials, and community members about what, exactly, is known about the impact gangs have on Chicago. Data shows that police did not identify a cause or motive in the majority of incidents. Police categorized the cases this way even in instances when they didn’t have enough information to make an arrest. The Trace analyzed incident data for nearly 34,000 shootings and found that in the past decade, detectives labeled fewer than three in 10 of them gang-related. “If you really want to change the problem then you got to help the community grow, to build.”Īlthough Lightfoot spoke to the public with certainty, her own police department’s records can’t verify the narrative. They need to heal inside,” says Sylvester Henderson, 36, who grew up on the city’s West Side. “How could you say somebody needs to be eradicated? They need help. The mayor’s words frustrated residents and former gang members who say it oversimplifies the problem. ![]() ![]() No gang member, no drug dealer, no gun dealer can ever have a moment of peace on any block, any neighborhood, not in our city.” We have to continue striking hard blows, every day. “Eradicating both is complex, but we cannot let the size of the challenge deter us. “We have a common enemy: It’s the guns and the gangs,” she said. Sign up for one of their newsletters here.Įarlier this August, a traffic stop left a beloved police officer shot to death and another partially paralyzed, sending shockwaves throughout Chicago. The following morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot gave a speech pushing a narrative that’s dominated city news conferences and court hearings for decades. This story is published in partnership with The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence. Illustration by Veronica Martinez for the Trace.
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