Written by Andrew Papachristos was 15 in 1992 when gang members burned down his parents’ restaurant in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood.
Now, with a doctorate from the University of Chicago, he’s a prominent gang researcher. On Tuesday, he led a seminar for the “Know Your Chicago” program sponsored by the U. of C.’s Graham School of General Studies. Here’s an edited version of our conversation afterward:
Q. Why was your restaurant burned down?
A. My mom had been vocal against street gangs. It was the heyday of crack. They tried to extort my parents. They followed me around the neighborhood. And one day they torched the restaurant.
Q. How are Chicago gangs different now?
A. The gang nation is dead. They’ve gone from the corporate structure of the ’90s to something more like local franchises. Most deal drugs, and a lot of gangs operate like landlords: If you want to sell drugs in my neighborhood, I might rent you a spot.
Q. Is it true that gang members are likelier to be killed by an ally than an enemy?
A. Most gang violence happens at the hands of your own gang members. On the West Side, the Four Corner Hustlers have about five different branches now. The biggest disputes are between factions.
Q. Tell me some misunderstandings about gang members.
A. Everyone thinks they’re criminal masterminds. They’re bad delinquents. A handful of gang members are trying to be kingpins, but most aren’t skillful. And most join gangs for protection, not to deal drugs. They don’t feel safe — in school, the neighborhood, home. Most are not sociopaths.
Q. Homicides in Chicago are down by half in the past two decades. But when violence flares, as it did last week, there’s a renewed sense of Chicago as a violent place.
A. A bigger proportion is gang homicides, and it happens in the street, where people see it, unlike domestic violence that happens in private spaces. That kind of fear spreads.
Q. What’s the major reason gang members kill one another?
A. Status. The No. 2 reason in Chicago is the drug connection. The biggest reason is not that I want to sell drugs on your corner; it’s that somebody called me a name.
Q. Where do schools fit in?
A. If people bring neighborhood beefs into the schools, schools can exacerbate gangs. But the more committed you are to your school, the less likely (they are) to become involved in violence.
Q. What’s the answer?
A. The old answer was a pure get-tough-on-crime strategy. We’ve locked up a lot of gang members for dealing drugs. Incarceration is not bad. But mass incarceration is bad. Locking up the 14-year-old holding a bag of dope is different from locking up a gang leader with 40 kilos and a gun.
Q. And the new answer?
A. You want to figure out who the people are who are going to pull the trigger, or get hit, before it happens. Who are the groups and people that are actively feuding?
A small number of offenders are responsible for most violent crimes. In Chicago, 98 percent of homicide offenders have a criminal record, 79 percent of the victims.
Identifying who the players are helps on both sides of the equation and hopefully avoids the negative consequences of locking up the 14-year-old.
The criminal justice message dominates. We need to think of it as a public health problem.
