CHICAGO — Four out of five victims of fatal violence in Chicago in the first six months of this year faced criminal charges in Cook County at some point, a new analysis shows.
The study of 324 homicides by the Sun-Times found that most of those charges were drug-related. More than 25 percent of the victims had been convicted of a violent offense or illegal gun possession, and two out of five had drug convictions.
The majority of victims — 72 percent — were black. Their average age was 29, the paper reported in its Sunday editions.
Read the Sun-Times report here.
That report comes on the heels of a study by the Injury Prevention and Research Center at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago which concluded that the overall homicide rate in Chicago increased by 8.6 percent from 2005 (17.32 per 100,0000) to 2015 (18.81 per 100,000).
In that same time period, homicide rates per 100,000 for African-Americans in Chicago increased by 28.7 percent (36.14 to 46.52).
The homicide rate for Hispanics increased 7.6 percent from 2005 (10.54 per 100,000) to 2015 (11.34 per 100,000).
For whites, the rate decreased by 40 percent (4.39 to 2.65 per 100,000) in Chicago, the Lurie report said.
Men are 10 times more likely to be killed than women. In 2015, 20- to 24-year-olds had the highest homicide rates, followed by 15- to 19-year-olds.
“Gun violence remains the leading cause of death for young people in Chicago. Although this is appalling, we shouldn’t be surprised," Dr. Karen Sheehan, a professor of pediatrics and preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine said.
Sheehan urged more funding for studying homicides.
"Currently, there is limited funding to support high quality firearm injury prevention research. If we truly want to prevent firearm injuries and death, we will treat this like the public health crisis it is and invest in understanding and addressing this epidemic,” she said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been caught in a gun-control fight that has hindered its research for decades. Some two dozen U.S. senators have signed a letter urging funding for CDC research.
