Gun Violence
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We Don’t Need More ‘Terror on Repeat’
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Co-authored by David Chrisinger, Executive Director of the Harris School of Public Policy Writing Workshop and advisor to the Chicago Policy Review. In the first two months of 2024, more than 5,000 Americans were injured or killed by guns in various forms of violence, including more than 50 mass shootings.…
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We Live in an Era of Ritual Child Sacrifice
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Isabeau Dasho is the Assistant director of the Harris Writing Workshop and new mom. Co-authored by Megan Sanders. Recently I attended the “Death: Life’s Greatest Mystery” exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum. It was deft, approachable, and well handled. The curators took care with the horrific and scary bits, respectfully…
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Will Illinois’ New Assault Weapons Ban Reduce Gun Violence?
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Six months after a gunman legally purchased a semiautomatic rifle and killed seven people in Highland Park, a northern Chicago suburb, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the Protect Illinois Communities Act into law, banning the sale and delivery of assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and switches. Cook County enacted similar legislation…
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Beyond Gentrification: How Vacant Lot Upkeep Can Improve Community Safety At An Affordable Price
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If every square block of abandoned land in American cities were placed side-by-side, the area would be larger than the state of Maryland. In fact, nearly 15 percent of all urban land is either vacant or barren. This limits the economic vitality of communities with vast swaths of unused land, which are disproportionately…
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The Deteriorating Impact of the Project Safe Neighborhoods Program in Chicago
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Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) was launched by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002 to reduce gun violence across 94 federal districts. The City of Chicago adopted this program the same year, targeting neighborhoods inflicted with high rates of poverty, unemployment, gang membership, and high school dropouts. Initial evaluations determined…
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Using Social Networks to Predict Gun Violence in Chicago
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As gun violence takes hundreds of lives each year in Chicago, academics, journalists and policy makers continue to debate the merits of viewing gun violence as a public health issue. While organizations like the American Public Health Association advocate in favor, others remain skeptical of extending the term “epidemic” beyond…
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Capturing the Economic Toll of Urban Gun Violence
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Every time a trigger is pulled in Minneapolis, the creation of 80 potential jobs is blocked. While the traumatizing effects of gun violence have been studied extensively, its impact on economic activity has remained largely unexplored. A recent Urban Institute report, “The Effect of Gun Violence on Local Economies,” establishes…
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More Questions than Answers: A Review of Gun Violence in Chicago
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The University of Chicago Crime Lab released a report in January 2017 that details the sudden spike in gun violence that persisted throughout 2016. The Crime Lab analyzed key data in an attempt to discover what triggered the dramatic increase in gun-related crime. Many of the findings were not surprising: Gun violence…
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A Way Forward on Guns: A Conversation with Arkadi Gerney on How to Win the Fight for Stricter Gun Laws
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Over the past few years, mass shootings have become more frequent, and especially with the December 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, CA, guns seem to have come to the fore. To what do you attribute this uptick in particularly public mass shootings and other types of gun violence over the…
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Live Fast, Die Young, Defend Your Status: The Code of Retaliation
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A harsh childhood can lead to a life strategy that condones violence in response to status threats. An economic game shows that such a worldview is linked to heightened envy in unfair situations.
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Howard Wolfson on post-9/11 Privacy and Security in Urban America
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Political strategist and former New York City Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson discusses how terrorism, technology, and crime have impacted views on privacy and security.