vice | The truth is street violence isn't determined by the police chief
when you have a city with a high black and brown unemployment rate,
according to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder of the RainbowPUSH
Coalition, which is headquartered on the city's South Side. In 2015, the
jobless rate in Illinois was 12 percent for African Americans and 7.2 percent for Hispanics.
"You
can't police poverty, you have to eliminate it," Jackson tells VICE.
"We have vacant lots, closed schools, recycled poverty. There's a
growing sense of recycled desperation."
Residents tend to agree Chicago has to look at the systemic factors behind people killing one another, such as community disinvestment. Moore points to the work of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, where researchers are concerned with the access and flow of illegal guns.
"It's probably more important to look at overall trends and what works and what isn't working," she tells me. "It's easy to get caught up in the number, and sometimes the solutions become more military- than investment-based."
A recent University of Illinois at Chicago report on youth joblessness highlights a source of desperation: 88 percent of black youths ages 16 to 19 were jobless in 2014, and 85 percent of Latino youths were unemployed, compared with 29 percent of young people nationally.
Residents tend to agree Chicago has to look at the systemic factors behind people killing one another, such as community disinvestment. Moore points to the work of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, where researchers are concerned with the access and flow of illegal guns.
"It's probably more important to look at overall trends and what works and what isn't working," she tells me. "It's easy to get caught up in the number, and sometimes the solutions become more military- than investment-based."
A recent University of Illinois at Chicago report on youth joblessness highlights a source of desperation: 88 percent of black youths ages 16 to 19 were jobless in 2014, and 85 percent of Latino youths were unemployed, compared with 29 percent of young people nationally.
