The New Trend is Up

Homicide spreadsheet for January 2012 (click for larger view)

Chicago ended the first quarter of 2012 with 118 homicides, the worst first quarter for homicides in nine years, continuing a troublesome trend that began late last year. That is a 57% increase from the 75 homicides recorded in that same period in both 2011 and 2010. Nonfatal shootings totaled almost 490 in the first three months of 2012, up 37% from a year earlier.

The city recorded 50 homicides in March, up from 22 homicides in March 2011 and 31 in March 2010.

Criminologists contribute the rise in homiceds to the unseasonably warm weather this winter. Commenting that in better weather people are outside more which inevitably leads to more opportunity for conflict.

The worsening violence comes as the Emanuel administration touts its efforts to combat gang crime and add officers and resources to some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods.

To combat violence in two of Chicago's most violent neighborhoods, Police Superintendent McCarthy saturated "conflict zones" in the Englewood and Harrison police districts with additional officers early this year as a long-term strategy.

But the early results appear mixed. Through April 1st, homicides fell to 6 in the Harrison District on the West Side, down from 9 a year earlier. But killings almost doubled in the Englewood District on the South Side, jumping to 15 from 8. Nonfatal shootings rose sharply in both districts, however.

During one particularly violent weekend last month, 49 people were shot — 10 of them fatally, including a 6-year-old girl as she sat between her mom's legs on the family's Little Village front porch.

In the last two weeks of March, the violence continued unabated. The department's statistics show that 26 people were killed and more than 80 nonfatal shootings occurred from March 19 through April 1.

Here are the breakdowns for a few of the most affected communities as of today:

West Englewood - 10

Chicago Lawn - 10

Austin - 7

South Shore - 7

South Lawndale - 7

Englewood - 6

Dot Mapping Segregation in Chicago

Yale assistant professor Bill Rankin, proprietor of Radical Cartography addresses segregation in Chicago. He believes that block mapping is inaccurate. As Rankin points out, solid-color maps "visually reinforce political ideals... of ethnic homogeneity." His solution is to create census-based "dot maps," an old but infrequently used form of cartography. His award-winning dot-map of Chicago makes a great companion to the other maps of the city, because you can see how neighborhoods break down by race. Let's let him explain:

See more on Bill Rankin's Radical Cartography website.

Hayt School

I came upon these images today and realized that I never shared them. In the spring of 2011 while Killing Season was showing at Mes Hall in Rogers Park, I got to do a workshop with a group of young men from Hayt Elementary School. They were part of a club at their school for African-American and Hispanic boys. Since the recent influx of hispanic families into the area, there have been some issues with violence between the two groups. This club was aimed at mending that rift.



After checking out the exhibition, we had a discussion about violence and "the broken window theory. " the kids were broken up into two groups to go out and photograph with disposable cameras. They were asked to take pictures of things that could be indicative of violence in the neighborhood. The images that they took were fantastic and insightful. Here are a smattering of some of my favorites.

"Crime Unseen" on Gather Round the Mic

Evan Mather wrote an interesting article about "Crime Unseen" on Gather Round the Mic. He wrote a little something about each of the artists in the show. Here's what he said about Killing Season:

"All of the photographers involved in the show take different approaches to looking at the intersections between crime and photography, though all, in some way, look at its effects. Those effects can be quite disparate, though, varying in the specificity of the crime, and the focus on either the human or societal impacts of the crime. The most expansive approach comes from Krista Wortendyke in her piece Killing Season: Chicago. Between October 2010 and January 2011, Wortendyke photographed the site of every homicide in the city, often days or weeks after the crime was committed. These photographs are arranged chronologically on a wall. In times when there were many murders, the photographs rise high, while gaps between crimes leave gaps, creating the image of a city skyline. The images, absent of context, are exceedingly banal, combined with the unique display method, all serve to illustrate how violence and crime disappears into the make-up of a city, and can become as integral to its composition as its buildings."

Click here to read the whole article.

Reader recommends "Crime Unseen"

"Crime Unseen" was recommended by the Chicago Reader as the show to see this week! Read the full article HERE.

"Crime Unseen" in New City

Jason Foumberg covered both "Crime Unseen" at the Museum of Contemporary Photography and "The Happiness Project" curated by Trish van Eck in New City's Eye Exam this week. I am excited to have an image featured as well as a nice mention of my work in the MoCP show.

See the article HERE.

Killing Season Addendum

Please visit my new project blog Addendum. I am writing about my experiences and posting photos from my adventures as I embark on this new piece, an offshoot of Killing Season Chicago, made for specifically for Crime Unseen at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. The show will run from October 28th - January 15th. This addendum will be a data driven visual bar graph mirroring the homicides in 2010 during time period of the show.