Successfully Managing Youth Violence in Chicago and America







By Phillip Jackson



February 6, 2013







Youth violence in Chicago is a complex, compound problem that simple solutions, such as "hire more policemen", can't solve. These are current strategies being used to reduce youth violence in Chicago that have not worked:



Increasing police on the streets with high-powered weapons and highly-militarized, crime-fighting equipment

Arresting, incarcerating and criminalizing youth

Focusing mostly on drug and gang activity

Using university research to create strategies for the streets

Intervening at the point of violence

Having the wrong people at the discussion table who don't know what causes youth violence and that have few new ideas for solving the problem of youth violence



I do not support any strategy that focuses on locking up more young Black men rather than sending more young Black men to college. I do not support any strategy that takes Black fathers away from their children through mass incarceration and destroys Black families and destabilizes Black communities. I do not support any strategy that only tells young Black drug dealers to stop selling drugs without giving them positive economic alternatives for earning a living.







Here are statistics on murders and youth murders in Chicago and America:







Big National Response:



Sandy Hook/Newtown, Connecticut - 26 killed

Columbine, Colorado - 12 killed

Aurora, Colorado - 12 killed



Almost No Local or National Response:



In Chicago, 108 youth, 19 years of age and younger, were killed in 2012

In Chicago, 513 Chicago citizens were killed in 2012

In Chicago, about 500 youth and children, 19 years old or younger were killed in the last 5 years on the streets of Chicago with about 50 Chicago soldiers being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan during that same period

In Chicago, about 5,000 people have been killed in 10 years with only about 2,000 American soldiers being killed in Afghanistan during the same period

In the United States, about 75,000 mostly young Black men were killed in the last 10 years, (mostly in large urban cities) compared to only about 52,000 soldiers killed during the entire Viet Nam conflict



Here are four key solutions to reducing youth violence in Chicago:



Rebuild the Black family. Most of the violence in Chicago occurs in the Black community. Strong family units and good parenting practices are the biggest deterrents to youth violence. Strong families create good communities, good schools and well-balanced, socially productive children and young adults.

Provide strong, positive, mentors and role models for children in violence-plagued communities. The best mentoring organizations in their communities presently are the street gangs. When thugs, drug dealers and gang members do a better job of mentoring youth than churches, schools and community organizations, we have no chance to save these children.

Provide a globally competitive education for children in violence-plagued communities. Communities that have more collective educational attainment (educational capital) have less violence. Children in many Chicago violence-plagued communities are getting an education equivalent to or below that of some children in Third World countries.

Provide positive economic alternatives to selling drugs, burglary, robbery and other illegal economic activities that drive violence in these communities. These alternatives include training for new industries, entrepreneurship, job readiness training, connecting education to economics, and finally, the offer of jobs, internships and other employment opportunities. Much of the violence in these communities is economic related. Much of the rest of the violence is interpersonal violence that will be cured by rebuilding the family, mentoring and improving educational opportunities.



Chicago isn't safe for young Black men.



There is a major financial cost to not successfully managing youth violence in Chicago. It is unfortunate that Chicago has gained an international reputation for violence and crime. We do not deserve this title. But how many tourism dollars have we lost because of this violence? How many businesses decided not to locate in Chicago because of this violence? How many good families decided not to come to Chicago, or to leave Chicago, because of this violence?







We cannot police our way out of the violence that has over taken our city. We must work our way out of the violence with intelligence, management, coordination, resources, prayers and most of all the support, engagement and actions of parents, families and community members. In the long run, this is cheaper and better for Chicago than trying to simply police our way out of this violence.



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Please click here to ask the White House to work with The Black Star Project to implement the above approach to successfully manage youth violence in America.



Please call Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at 312.744.3300 to to ask him to work with The Black Star Project to implement the above approach to successfully managing youth violence in Chicago.