Patrick Fitzgerald on Chicago urban crime

[scandal 951]

Yes, this is the same Patrick Fitzgerald, US Attorney who prosecuted the Scooter Libby case, and who brought down the Rod Blagojevich indictment. He's known as a tough on crime prosecutor. Here he is calling for ongoing Law Enforcement, but also for the community to rally behind efforts to give the gang kids realistic options beyond life on the streets.

This graph (alarming growth in % of homicide victims who are younger than 16) is from an excellent recent NPR piece on gang violence.

Business, step up to fight crime

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ope...0,1963806.story

By Patrick J. Fitzgerald

May 27, 2009

The hot days of summer will soon be here, and so, too, the violence that comes with them. The 2009 homicide numbers in Chicago are bittersweet so far. The good news -- 15 percent fewer murders than in 2008, though the roughest months are still ahead. But the number of school-age children killed this school year -- 36 -- is a tragic reminder that no number will ever be small enough. Indeed, two years ago, during a "good" statistical year, Blair Holt was shot to death riding a bus home from school. That should never happen.

What do we do this summer?

Law enforcement is doing its part. The hardest job falls to the 13,000 Chicago police officers who do a dangerous and often thankless job of taking on an estimated 70,000 gang members in Chicago. Federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration meet monthly to identify and prosecute the most dangerous gangs and gang members dealing drugs and guns in the area. Federal prosecutors and the Cook County state's attorney's office are busier than ever handling gun and gang cases. .

Prosecuting the "worst of the worst" is necessary. It is just as important to get the message out to would-be offenders to change their behavior before they commit a crime. On a regular basis, parolees released in high-crime areas are brought to a one-hour forum where they meet with law enforcement, community-service providers and ex-offenders as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods. Parolees are told that if they are caught with a gun, they will be dealt with harshly. They also are told about alternative choices they have: education, drug treatment and employment training.

Can a one-hour meeting really have impact? Yes. According to a study, just under 25 percent of felons who attended such forums were back in prison within three years of release -- much better than the rate for felons who did not attend. The authors of the study concluded that attending a one-hour meeting reduced recidivism by more than 30 percent. That is a bargain for the taxpayers. Credit some of the success of the forums to law-enforcement deterrence (the stick) and some to the community providing alternatives (the carrot). More important, the results negate the assumption that everyone coming out of prison wants to go back to doing what got him into prison in the first place.

We need more help from Chicago's business community to fight violence. We need businesses to get off the sidelines and step up with more "carrots," especially opportunities for those willing to do honest work rather than return to gang life. It would be a tragedy if parolees were convinced that they can go straight, only to find out that there is no such choice.

But can we really ask businesses to consider hiring felons during these tough economic times? We must. We cannot wait on the market to change before taking steps to reduce the carnage that gang violence produces.

There are many ways that business can help, including donating services, underwriting after-school programs or providing internships to high school students before they get wrapped up in gangs. The same community spirit that causes businesses to adopt highways might inspire them to underwrite programs in particular neighborhoods. And that could mean fewer parents attending funerals for their children.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald is the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

[scandal 951]

Here's the full text of the NPR story

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...oryId=104566915

Youth Killings Reach Crisis Level In Chicago

by David Schaper

All Things Considered, May 27, 2009 · Young people in Chicago are dying violent deaths at an alarming rate.

So far this school year, at least 36 Chicago Public School students have been killed, most of them victims of gunshots. Scores of other Chicago children and teenagers have been wounded in shootings, and there are concerns that the gun violence could escalate when school is out for the summer in a few weeks.

While urban gun violence in Chicago and other cities is nothing new, there is a growing sense among community leaders that it's now at a crisis level.

"Honestly, I'll admit it, I'm afraid to come to school sometimes," says Clinet Jordan, 18, a senior at Chicago's Simeon Career Academy high school, on the city's South Side.

"Usually [gang members] don't try to pull that stuff until after school, but now they're trying to get kids coming to school in the morning. That's ridiculous. We shouldn't be scared to come somewhere — we should feel safe and have a safe learning environment. It don't play right; it's not right."

Heavy Toll

Jordan and his classmates at Simeon know the toll of gang-related gun violence all too well.

Greg Robinson, a shy, quiet freshman basketball player, was in the back seat of a car while returning home from a game when someone started shooting. He died trying to shield his young cousins from gunfire.

Simeon has lost several other students to gun violence over the years, and it's far from the only Chicago high school affected.

Gangs are prevalent throughout the city, and teenagers often have to cross dangerous turf to get to and from school. Some of the victims have been in gangs, but many have not. Some are targeted because they won't join a gang; others are mistaken for gang members or simply caught in the crossfire.

"How could you even say, like, wrong place and wrong time?" says Ronnie Mosley, Simeon's senior class president.

While rattling off the names of other area students killed in recent years, Mosley says these weren't kids who were in gangs or in trouble, or even doing things they shouldn't have been doing.

"Greg was at home. Chavez [Clarke] was here at Simeon on a Saturday getting credits to graduate. Blair [Holt] was on a bus on his way home," Mosley says. "No place is safe but possibly schools."

"Your mind is immune to the violence," says Simeon senior Diedra Barnes. "You sad, but at the same time it feels like there's nothing you can do, because every time you turn on the TV, it's like, 'Oh, another CPS student is shot, or this kid is shot.' "

Jordan says having his high school years marred by the constant danger of gun violence is leading him to attend college as far "away from the city as possible; that's why I'm going to [go] all the way to the East Coast. I refuse to live my life in fear."

Jordan plans to attend the Citadel in South Carolina next fall.

"My family is telling me, when I leave, don't come back," he says.

A Neighborhood In Distress

Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church in the same neighborhood as Simeon, is outraged at the violence.

"What kind of crazy day do we live in, where our children are afraid to come home and go to school?" Pfleger says.

Outside of his church, Pfleger flies the American flag upside down — something the U.S. Flag Code states should only be done as a signal of distress and a dire need for help.

"Well, this is a dire need," Pfleger says. "This is a distress signal we're putting up saying we need help. We want to sound the alarm; we want a call for helping us deal with children being shot down in our city streets."

Some veterans' groups accuse the priest of desecrating the flag in a publicity stunt, but others, including a group called Veterans Against Violence, have joined Pfleger and his cause.

Pfleger wants the country to respond to the problem of urban violence in the same way it responds to what he says are much lesser threats, like the swine flu.

"We effectively called a consciousness of a nation in 48 hours on H1N1. A billion dollars was released from the administration to deal with it," Pfleger says. "Well, how come we can't be as comprehensive and as aggressive with blood on our streets of our children?"

An Enormous Gang Population

Gun violence is so pervasive in Chicago because of the sheer number of gang members, according to Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis.

"We have the largest gang population of any city in the United States," Weis says. "The only city that rivals us is Los Angeles."

Weis says that while L.A.'s gang population is estimated to be somewhere between 55,000 and 70,000, he estimates there are at least 100,000 gang members in Chicago.

The Chicago Police Department is targeting those entrenched gangs throughout the city in several ways. One is by what he calls "hardening the terrain," or having officers saturate certain areas such as parks, street corners and alleys that are known for gang activity.

In addition, Weis says the Police Department has a specialized gang unit.

"They focus on the actual worst of the worst gang members: the people who are making the decisions, who should be shot, the people who are actually pulling the triggers," Weis says. "And they go out every day with a list of targets, trying to find these people, these persons of interest, and locate them and try to catch them."

Weis adds that the Chicago Police Department is working to improve community relations. Distrust of the police has long been a problem in Chicago. And the city is cracking down on curfew violations, to get kids off the street when they're most at risk.

'We Have To Kind Of Be Radical'

The Chicago schools are teaching conflict resolution skills to students, and they are trying to defuse disputes between gangs and cliques so they don't escalate later when students are out of school.

Weis says the strategies appear to be working.

"We're down about 15 percent in homicides," he says, compared to the first few months of last year. And the number of school-age victims is down, too, according to Weis.

But 2008's juvenile homicide total in Chicago, 50, was the highest in seven years, and there are worries that as the weather heats up, so, too, will the violence, as it has in past years.

Weis says he will soon announce additional summertime tactics aimed at reducing gun and gang violence in Chicago. But the superintendent and others say policing alone is not enough to solve the complex problems that are costing too many young people their lives.

"Complex problems require complex solutions," says Simeon senior Ronnie Mosley. "I think, you know, we have to kind of be radical in our approaches."

Mosley, who will attend Morehouse College in Atlanta in the fall, has led rallies and marches against gun violence with his classmates. He and other students have traveled to the Illinois State Capitol to push for an assault weapons ban, a state limit of one handgun purchase a month, and other "common-sense gun laws" — none of which has passed.

One such bill, which had the support of Chicago students who had lost too many classmates to gunshots, failed by just five votes. "We were devastated," Mosley says.

"It's kind of like a slap in the face," adds Diedra Barnes. "It makes you feel like nothing is being done and nothing is happening. We march and we try to protest and, it's like, for two weeks [the shootings] ceased and then out of nowhere, bam, somebody else died."

But Barnes, Mosley and other students say they'll continue their battle against gangs and gun violence in Chicago. They say preventing youth violence starts with them — in their homes, neighborhoods and schools.

[Danno 1,228]

I'm sure it's nothing another Program won't solve.

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

I'm sure it's nothing another Program won't solve.

throw tax dollars at it, that will fix it.

[scandal 951]

I'm sure it's nothing another Program won't solve.

throw tax dollars at it, that will fix it.

I'm still waiting for constellation to come and tell me how in Melbourne they don't have any gang violence.

More seriously, do you guys not have anything more constructive to say? There are middle school and high school kids getting butchered by the dozens in the streets. If they were white kids, it would be leading the news every night. But since they're black kids on the South Side, nobody gives a #######. Obviously we need tough law&order to get the worst offenders off the street. But that's clearly not enough- it's not solving the problem. Fitzgerald is NOT calling for more government run programs, he's NOT asking for additional public funds. He's calling for public/private partnership. He's asking business leaders to do their part in giving these kids an alternative, show them that there is a path to success that doesn't involve street corners, gang colors, prison, and coffins. I would think this is exactly the sort of thing that law&order small-government conservatives would be fully in support of. As should dyed in the world pinko liberals. What's not to like? And yet... deafening silence.

[alienlovechild 75]

More seriously, do you guys not have anything more constructive to say? There are middle school and high school kids getting butchered by the dozens in the streets. If they were white kids, it would be leading the news every night. But since they're black kids on the South Side, nobody gives a #######.

They need role models of black men in position of power. Pres. Obama's influence on these folks is nonexistent which contradicts at least 40 years on the role models theory.

It's not entirely political but why should the policymakers care when they know black folks are always going to vote for the same party?

He's calling for public/private partnership. He's asking business leaders to do their part in giving these kids an alternative, show them that there is a path to success that doesn't involve street corners, gang colors, prison, and coffins. I would think this is exactly the sort of thing that law&order small-government conservatives would be fully in support of. As should dyed in the world pinko liberals. What's not to like? And yet... deafening silence.

Obviously, you've never heard take-your-son/daughter-to-work-day. I'm skeptical of any claims of a silver bullet program especially a one hour talk. There were night basketball leagues, Boys and Grils clubs, self-esteem in schools, government makework jobs. . . the reality is this country builds more and more jails and turns young thugs into old men if they ever get released. If highly unlikely any white conservative is going to change the ethos in the inner city and local leaders just go through the motions for more power. Rev. Sharpton has already hit the scene- blaming the police I think.

Edited May 31, 2009 by alienlovechild

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

I'm sure it's nothing another Program won't solve.

throw tax dollars at it, that will fix it.

I'm still waiting for constellation to come and tell me how in Melbourne they don't have any gang violence.

More seriously, do you guys not have anything more constructive to say? There are middle school and high school kids getting butchered by the dozens in the streets. If they were white kids, it would be leading the news every night. But since they're black kids on the South Side, nobody gives a #######. Obviously we need tough law&order to get the worst offenders off the street. But that's clearly not enough- it's not solving the problem. Fitzgerald is NOT calling for more government run programs, he's NOT asking for additional public funds. He's calling for public/private partnership. He's asking business leaders to do their part in giving these kids an alternative, show them that there is a path to success that doesn't involve street corners, gang colors, prison, and coffins. I would think this is exactly the sort of thing that law&order small-government conservatives would be fully in support of. As should dyed in the world pinko liberals. What's not to like? And yet... deafening silence.

race card is played.......

[scandal 951]

I'm sure it's nothing another Program won't solve.

throw tax dollars at it, that will fix it.

I'm still waiting for constellation to come and tell me how in Melbourne they don't have any gang violence.

More seriously, do you guys not have anything more constructive to say? There are middle school and high school kids getting butchered by the dozens in the streets. If they were white kids, it would be leading the news every night. But since they're black kids on the South Side, nobody gives a #######. Obviously we need tough law&order to get the worst offenders off the street. But that's clearly not enough- it's not solving the problem. Fitzgerald is NOT calling for more government run programs, he's NOT asking for additional public funds. He's calling for public/private partnership. He's asking business leaders to do their part in giving these kids an alternative, show them that there is a path to success that doesn't involve street corners, gang colors, prison, and coffins. I would think this is exactly the sort of thing that law&order small-government conservatives would be fully in support of. As should dyed in the world pinko liberals. What's not to like? And yet... deafening silence.

race card is played.......

Yep!

[alienlovechild 75]

I'm sure it's nothing another Program won't solve.

throw tax dollars at it, that will fix it.

I'm still waiting for constellation to come and tell me how in Melbourne they don't have any gang violence.

More seriously, do you guys not have anything more constructive to say? There are middle school and high school kids getting butchered by the dozens in the streets. If they were white kids, it would be leading the news every night. But since they're black kids on the South Side, nobody gives a #######. Obviously we need tough law&order to get the worst offenders off the street. But that's clearly not enough- it's not solving the problem. Fitzgerald is NOT calling for more government run programs, he's NOT asking for additional public funds. He's calling for public/private partnership. He's asking business leaders to do their part in giving these kids an alternative, show them that there is a path to success that doesn't involve street corners, gang colors, prison, and coffins. I would think this is exactly the sort of thing that law&order small-government conservatives would be fully in support of. As should dyed in the world pinko liberals. What's not to like? And yet... deafening silence.

race card is played.......

Yep!

And yet... more deafening silence. Interesting how no liberals wanted a piece of this one.

[scandal 951]

I'm sure it's nothing another Program won't solve.

throw tax dollars at it, that will fix it.

I'm still waiting for constellation to come and tell me how in Melbourne they don't have any gang violence.

More seriously, do you guys not have anything more constructive to say? There are middle school and high school kids getting butchered by the dozens in the streets. If they were white kids, it would be leading the news every night. But since they're black kids on the South Side, nobody gives a #######. Obviously we need tough law&order to get the worst offenders off the street. But that's clearly not enough- it's not solving the problem. Fitzgerald is NOT calling for more government run programs, he's NOT asking for additional public funds. He's calling for public/private partnership. He's asking business leaders to do their part in giving these kids an alternative, show them that there is a path to success that doesn't involve street corners, gang colors, prison, and coffins. I would think this is exactly the sort of thing that law&order small-government conservatives would be fully in support of. As should dyed in the world pinko liberals. What's not to like? And yet... deafening silence.

race card is played.......

Yep!

And yet... more deafening silence. Interesting how no liberals wanted a piece of this one.

Ahh, it's a quiet weekend. Everyone is more interested in the 1 guy / gazillion kids thread

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

I'm sure it's nothing another Program won't solve.

throw tax dollars at it, that will fix it.

I'm still waiting for constellation to come and tell me how in Melbourne they don't have any gang violence.

More seriously, do you guys not have anything more constructive to say? There are middle school and high school kids getting butchered by the dozens in the streets. If they were white kids, it would be leading the news every night. But since they're black kids on the South Side, nobody gives a #######. Obviously we need tough law&order to get the worst offenders off the street. But that's clearly not enough- it's not solving the problem. Fitzgerald is NOT calling for more government run programs, he's NOT asking for additional public funds. He's calling for public/private partnership. He's asking business leaders to do their part in giving these kids an alternative, show them that there is a path to success that doesn't involve street corners, gang colors, prison, and coffins. I would think this is exactly the sort of thing that law&order small-government conservatives would be fully in support of. As should dyed in the world pinko liberals. What's not to like? And yet... deafening silence.

race card is played.......

Yep!

And yet... more deafening silence. Interesting how no liberals wanted a piece of this one.

Ahh, it's a quiet weekend. Everyone is more interested in the 1 guy / gazillion kids thread

maybe there's more shooting in that thread.

[Danno 1,228]

Perhaps it's way simplistic but the question is;

How do you get teen from trying to live-out the RAP CULTURE?