What’s the cause of death? It’s a five-letter word that begins with G
The Chicago Tribune recently published a lengthy article examining the alarming surge of gun violence in the Deering Police District (9th District), which encompasses Bridgeport, McKinley Park, Back of the Yards, Canaryville, and adjacent neighborhoods. Not to be confused with the South Deering community area on the Far Southeast Side, the Deering District has become the epicenter of one of Chicago’s most troubling increases in violent crime this year.
The Tribune’s story is filled with heartbreaking accounts of innocent people caught in the crossfire. A 17-year-old Tilden High School student, Pedro Ramírez, was murdered on his way to school. Two older men driving to a morning appointment were shot. A woman sitting in her car with her younger brothers was gunned down. Residents described the constant anxiety of living in neighborhoods where violence can erupt without warning. It is a sobering portrait of the human toll that crime takes on ordinary Chicagoans.
Yet for all its detail, the article largely dances around the elephant in the room. That elephant is gangs.
The Tribune interviewed sociologists, violence interrupters, politicians, police officials, community activists, and neighborhood leaders. Readers were treated to discussions about trauma, community relationships, violence prevention strategies, outreach programs, and workforce development opportunities. What was largely absent was an honest acknowledgment that many of these shootings appear connected to organized street gangs that have been operating in these neighborhoods for decades.
Only deep into the article do we finally encounter references to long-standing conflicts between gangs such as the Latin Saints and La Raza. We learn that gang slogans were allegedly shouted during one killing. We learn investigators suspect gang conflicts in several of the shootings. We learn violence prevention workers spend much of their time attempting to mediate disputes between rival groups. In other words, even the article’s own reporting points repeatedly toward gangs as a major driver of the violence. Yet somehow gangs remain a secondary consideration rather than the central issue.
Imagine reading a newspaper article about New York City in the 1970s that discussed a wave of murders, extortion schemes, and shootings but barely mentioned the Mafia. Readers would immediately recognize that something important was missing from the analysis. The same thing is happening here. Chicago’s political class, media establishment and academic experts often seem reluctant to speak plainly about the role organized gangs play in making entire neighborhoods unsafe. The result is that discussions about violence frequently focus on symptoms rather than causes.
One of the more revealing moments in the Tribune article comes when Alderman Raymond Lopez observes that in many neighborhoods, there are fewer than 200 people responsible for the overwhelming majority of the trouble. If that estimate is even close to accurate, it raises an obvious question. Why does the city behave as though this problem is beyond its ability to solve? We are not talking about hundreds of thousands of offenders. We are talking about a relatively small number of repeat criminals who repeatedly terrorize law-abiding residents.
Making matters worse, Chicago has deliberately handicapped its own ability to track and monitor gang activity. The city effectively abandoned its gang database after years of controversy over accuracy and concerns about disparate impact. No database is perfect, and safeguards should exist against abuse, but it is difficult to understand why a city struggling with persistent gang violence would voluntarily give up one of the tools that helps law enforcement identify patterns, track affiliations, and focus resources on known offenders. If, as Alderman Lopez suggests, a relatively small number of individuals are responsible for a disproportionate share of the violence, common sense would suggest that identifying and monitoring those individuals ought to be a priority rather than a political liability.
For decades, federal authorities successfully used the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO, to dismantle organized criminal enterprises. The law was designed specifically to address criminal organizations whose members work together to commit crimes while insulating leaders from direct responsibility. Rather than arresting one bookmaker today and one enforcer tomorrow, prosecutors could build cases against entire organizations. The strategy was famously used against the American Mafia and proved remarkably effective.
So why are we not seeing more aggressive use of RICO-style prosecutions against violent street gangs? If gangs function as organized criminal enterprises involved in shootings, murders, narcotics trafficking, intimidation, and other criminal activity, they would appear to fit exactly the kind of organizations that anti-racketeering laws were designed to target. Instead of waiting for the next homicide and making another arrest after the fact, authorities should be building comprehensive conspiracy cases aimed at dismantling entire gang structures. Arrest the shooters. Arrest the lookouts. Arrest the weapons suppliers. Arrest the drug dealers. Arrest the leadership. Treat the organization itself as the criminal enterprise that it is.
Instead, Chicago often appears trapped in a cycle of managing violence rather than eliminating it. Every new shooting produces another community meeting. Every homicide leads to another discussion panel. Every summer brings calls for more outreach programs, more intervention workers, and more funding. Some of these programs undoubtedly have value, and many of the people involved are sincere individuals trying to make dangerous neighborhoods safer. But at some point, common sense demands that we ask whether endless programming can substitute for law enforcement.
The Tribune article quotes violence prevention advocates discussing opportunities for gang members, workforce development programs, and safe spaces where people can spend time away from neighborhood conflicts. Those ideas may help some individuals choose a different path. Nobody objects to giving troubled young people alternatives to gang life. But what happens when someone rejects those alternatives and continues participating in a criminal organization that routinely engages in violence? Surely there must come a point where consequences matter more than opportunities.
The deeper problem is that many of our leaders increasingly view crime through a sociological lens, while ordinary citizens experience it through a practical one. The sociologist asks why a criminal committed a crime. The resident asks why the criminal was still on the street. The academic studies root causes. The parent wonders whether their child will make it safely to school. The expert analyzes social conditions. The shop owner worries about getting robbed. These perspectives are not necessarily incompatible, but one of them is far more urgent for people living in neighborhoods plagued by violence. It reminds us of the lyrics to “Officer Krupke” in West Side Story. This litany of “root causes” excuses was written in 1957, so there’s nothing new about the gang problem regardless of race, color or creed. Yet, we still fail to address it head on.
Residents of the beleaguered 9th district are not looking for academic theories. They are looking for safety. They want to send their children to school without fear. They want to drive to work without being caught in a gang dispute. They want to sit on their porches without hearing gunfire. They want neighborhood businesses to thrive instead of boarding up their windows. These are not extravagant demands. They are the basic expectations of people living in a civilized society.
Chicago’s political leadership, however, often seems more comfortable discussing root causes than immediate causes. The immediate cause of a shooting is not poverty. The immediate cause is someone pulling a trigger. The immediate cause is a gang deciding that violence is an acceptable way to settle a dispute. The immediate cause is the failure to remove dangerous repeat offenders from the streets. Long-term social reforms may be worthwhile, but they cannot substitute for addressing the immediate threat posed by violent criminals.
There is also a larger issue lurking beneath the surface. Street gangs do not merely create violence. They generate income, much of it through narcotics trafficking. Every year countless lives are ruined by drugs. Families are destroyed. Addicts overdose. Children grow up in chaotic homes. Entire communities bear the cost of addiction and criminal activity. Yet at the same time, Illinois has increasingly embraced a model in which government itself participates in vice industries through legalized gambling and marijuana sales. One can debate the merits of those policies, but it is difficult to avoid the impression that our political leaders are increasingly comfortable managing vice rather than promoting virtue.
A healthy city creates prosperity through productive enterprise. It encourages businesses that manufacture goods, provide services, create jobs and generate wealth. A declining city becomes dependent on gambling revenues, drug revenues, and government redistribution. Chicago was once known as a city that built things. Today, it too often feels like a city that manages decline while hoping enough government programs can compensate for the consequences.
The besieged residents of the 9th District deserve better. The family of Pedro Ramírez deserved better. The innocent victims whose names never appear in newspaper headlines deserved better. What they need is not another symposium on violence. They need public officials willing to confront violent gangs with the same determination previous generations used against organized crime. They need prosecutors willing to build major conspiracy cases. They need judges willing to impose meaningful sentences. Most importantly, they need political leaders willing to acknowledge openly what everyone in these neighborhoods already knows.
The Tribune article contains all the evidence. The shootings. The rivalries. The retaliations. The territorial disputes. The gang affiliations. The problem is not hidden. It is staring us in the face. The question is whether Chicago’s leadership is willing to confront it. Until they do, innocent people will continue paying the price for a political culture that seems more interested in explaining criminal behavior than stopping it.
