Chicago Crime (Lincoln, Washington, Chatham: middle-class, condos, crime rate)

[southsida]

has anyone noticed a sudden surge in crime. Rogers park seems to be having a lot of drive by shooting shootings lately. The crime is getting a lot worse on the southside. neighborhoods like Enlewood, Asburn,Morgan park, especially Roseland and Pullman Washington heights. I Live on the eastside and I've been hearing gun shots the past few nights, I think it might have something to do with black and mexican gangs warring over drug territory in my hood. Whats going on, everyone always talking about how crime is going down I thinks thats bull

[Steve-o]

There will always be crime, sadly. Some neighborhoods are experiencing a drop, others a rise. I did see some figures not too long ago that showed overall crime levels are dropping, which is wonderful.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by southsida

has anyone noticed a sudden surge in crime. Rogers park seems to be having a lot of drive by shooting shootings lately. The crime is getting a lot worse on the southside. neighborhoods like Enlewood, Asburn,Morgan park, especially Roseland and Pullman Washington heights. I Live on the eastside and I've been hearing gun shots the past few nights, I think it might have something to do with black and mexican gangs warring over drug territory in my hood. Whats going on, everyone always talking about how crime is going down I thinks thats bull

Hmm, didn't know there were that many blacks in Eastside to be warring with anyone...

Anyway, if there is in fact a crime surge in certain parts of the city, I'd guess it has to do with the displacement of people who used to live in all the CHA highrises that are getting or have already been torn down. Just because crime is up in your neck of the woods doesn't mean it's up everywhere. For instance, the drop in crime in Bronzeville has been gigantic. The issue is probably not that crime is up, but that it's more dispersed than it was before the highrises started coming down and condos started going up.

[prairiestate]

I think we can finally stop the endless debates on how safe a neighborhood is. The problem with people saying, "well, I feel safe here" is that it's subjective, and everyone's comfort level is different. The Chicago Police have a really cool new mapping feature that will tell you exactly what is going on in a given area, so you can determine whether or not you would feel comfortable there. The only caveat is this represents crimes reported to police, some of which may be false reports or may be reclassified later. Still, I think it provides a great snapshot of community safety.

http://gis.chicagopolice.org/website...ums/viewer.htm

Start by selecting how you want to view the data. Police beat, ward, community area or other options. Then select what type of crime you want to view. What's great about this, if you're looking for how dangerous an area is, you can select a more general category. For instance, violent crime, or public violence, which is gun related crime in a public right of way. Finally select a time frame, from the past 90 days, to the past year.

You get a list of areas with their crime figures, as well as a map so you can see at a glance where the crime is. The figures are broken down into 4 groups, which each one being shaded a different color on the map.

As a lifelong Chicagoan, this was eye opening. I searched by community area for violent crime over the past year. Here are some of the revelations I found. I had long considered Chatham to be a relatively safe community. Not really. With 768 incidents of violent crime, it was the 11th most dangerous neighborhood in the city over the past 365 days. I know someone who lives in Archer Heights, and I'm aware of some recent problems with robberies, gunfire and graffiti, so I thought this neighborhood was getting pretty bad. Actually, with only 98 incidents, it ranks 57 out of 77 community areas (number 1 being the most violent) and it is in the bottom quarter of neighborhoods.

I'll admit, there can be some bias in these maps. Especially in a larger community, there may be one or two areas that are especially trouble prone, but you can look at crime all the way down to the level of a police beat (which is quite a small geographic area).

Now, I can't wait for people to start arguing that a neighborhood with 1000 violent crime incidents is no more dangerous then one with only 50!

[j33]

You do realize that these are instances of reported crime. The better the neighborhood, the more likely citizens are to report crime, the worse the neighborhood, it is more likely that many crimes would go unreported. I suspect that there are probably more assaults and robberies that go unreported in Englewood than in Lincoln Park. So in that I do believe that some crime stats must be taken with a grain of salt.

[prairiestate]

Originally Posted by j33

You do realize that these are instances of reported crime. The better the neighborhood, the more likely citizens are to report crime, the worse the neighborhood, it is more likely that many crimes would go unreported. I suspect that there are probably more assaults and robberies that go unreported in Englewood than in Lincoln Park. So in that I do believe that some crime stats must be taken with a grain of salt.

I would agree, but I get the feeling you're trying to say the most dangerous neighborhoods really aren't that bad. However, if the poorest neighborhoods are less likely to report crime, that means that Englewood and other poverty stricken areas may be even more dangerous that the statistics show, not less.

[j33]

I never said that. Not a once, and I actually agree with you, I've just always been wary of people who rely too much on reported crime stats when looking into neighborhoods.

[Drover]

I actually prefer chicagocrime.org: Chicago crime database because 1) you can search as far back as late 2005; 2) you have a lot more search criteria to work with including ward, police beat, ZIP code, police district, et cetera. BTW, chicagocrime.org derives its data from the CPD database, so you get the exact same results, just presented in a different format.

One thing these maps do not take into consideration is the population density of any given area. The map therefore only displays raw numbers and not crime rate. This can exaggerate the appearance of crime in denser neighborhoods, typically found on the north side. If neighborhood A has 1.5 times the number of incidents as neighborhood B but has twice the population density, neighborhood A actually has a lower crime rate than neighborhood B, but it won't look like it on a crime map. So a second step of getting a neighborhood's population is necessary to get a truer assessment of your risk of being victimized. When you made the determination that Chatham is the 11th most dangerous neighborhood in the city, did you take into consideration its population? If not, you may find that its crime rate may actually be higher or lower than 11th.

I did some research on Chatham not too long ago and I too was surprised to find out how much serious violent crime takes place there. Washington Heights is another place that is often described as "safe and stable" and yet there is a sobering number of murders committed there. (That's the neighborhood where the kid was gunned down on a CTA bus on the way to school: dad a cop, mom a fire captain.) I think what throws people off is that these neighborhoods are, for all intents and purposes and by all external appearances, middle-class neighborhoods, and therefore people assume the crime rate will be the same as any other middle-class areas. I think this is fueled by the oft-repeated oversimplification that "poverty breeds crime" and therefore where there is less poverty there will necessarily be less crime. Well folks, it's a little more complicated than that and there are other social and cultural factors that come into play. Nonetheless, it would be interesting to find out how much of the crime in those areas is committed by residents and how much is committed by outside troublemakers, as both neighborhoods are next to some not-so-wonderful areas.

[southsida]

Washington heights isn't really middle class anymore. It's not that bad yet but it's getting worse everyday. A lot of single mothers. I know this because I have a lot of family there. Lots of youth running around carrying pistols that don't think twice about pulling the trigger.

[cpdgis]

CLEAR Geographic Information System Crime Summary.

You should try viewing by Census Tract. Click on a Tract Number in the right-hand table and the map will zoom to that tract and display related Census information like population and economic indicators. Plus, tracts are typically smaller than police beats so it refines your view of the data.

And yes I'm the developer, so if you have any questions email gisteam@chicagopolice.org

We're glad you're using the site.