Chicago's Murder Rates in Black and White

By: Barnaby DingesThe Reporter's three-year murder study indicates that young black males living in some sections of the Near West and Near South Side are 30 times more likely to be murdered than young white males living in white areas.

More than 13 percent of the city's murder victims since 1987 were young black males from three police districts (Wentworth, Harrison and Englewood) where blacks comprise more than 90 percent of each district's population.

In the Wentworth District on the Near South Side, 104 of an estimated 11,200 black males ages 14 to 29 were slain since 1987. Homicide was the cause of death for 90 of the nearly 13,400 young black males living in the Harrison District on the West Side. And in the Englewood District on the South Side, 85 of nearly 16,000 young black males were murdered over the last three years.

But in the Jefferson Park District on the far Northwest Side, an area that is 96 percent white, only eight of more than 23,000 young white males were murdered. In the Chicago Lawn District on the Southwest Side, which is 86 percent white, six of 20,800 young white males were slain.

In two districts with populations of 14-to-29-year-old white males exceeding 5,000—Shakespeare and Morgan Park—no murders were reported for the group since 1987.

The murder rate for Latino youths was highest in the Monroe District west of the Loop, where Hispanics are half the population and 26 of 4,780 young males were slain. But the greatest number of murders of young Hispanic men occurred in the Shakespeare District on the near West Side, where 37 of more than 10,000 14-to-29-year-old Latino males were slain since 1987.

While hotspots of Hispanic murder were confined to seven districts, double-digit murders of young black males were recorded in 18 of the city's 25 police districts.

The murders of 10 or more young white males were recorded in only two districts over the past three years.