In 2016, homicides among Chicagoans aged 15 to 24 drastically spiked. Then in 2017, youth homicides boomeranged back to lower, pre-2015 levels. One likely contributor to this is the two-year pause in state funding, reports a new Northwestern University study.
Starting July 1, 2015, the State of Illinois underwent a two-year budget impasse — the longest standstill of its kind in the state’s history. During that time, funding was cut for state programs that serve Chicago’s most vulnerable populations. These include after-school programs, recreational leagues, summer job programs, social services and counseling.
“When the state came to its budget impasse in 2015, and budgets were really cut, the staffs were laid off and services were closed, it temporally correlates with the big uptick in youth homicides,” said corresponding study author Maryann Mason, associate professor of emergency medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Then, when the budget was reinstated in 2017, you can see the big decline in homicides.”
The study will be published Jan. 24 in the journal BMJ Open.
“The state budget provides things like street-violence interruption and supports all the things you’d think of as keeping kids productively busy and increasing positive connectivity,” said Mason, who also is the associate director of Feinberg’s Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics. “We have to consider state funding and social services as part of a violence-prevention strategy.”
Competing theories for youth homicides spikes, declines
Several competing theories attempt to explain the rapid spike and decline in youth homicides, such as the 2015 consent agreementwith the Chicago Police Department to reform “stop and frisk.”
“You see that spike in 2016, which is right after the consent decree, but then you see the youth homicide rate decline so rapidly again in 2017, and there was no change to the ’stop-and-frisk’ practice,” Mason said. “So in my mind, that rules out the police action as being a contributing factor.”
A 77% spike in monthly youth homicides in 2016
The study applied a novel approach to examine homicide count data from the National Violent Death Reporting System. It included information on 2,271 people between the ages of 15 and 24 who died by homicide between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2018. Of these decedents, 92.9% were male; 79.1% were non-Hispanic Black; and 94.9% died from a firearm injury.
In 2009, the annual homicide rate among this population was 51 per 100,000 people (average monthly rate of 4.3 per 100,000 people). At the peak in 2016, the annual rate was 90 per 100,000 people (average monthly rate of 7.5 per 100,000 people), meaning there was a 77% increase in monthly youth homicides in 2016. In 2018, the annual rate returned to earlier levels: 51 per 100,000 (average monthly rate of 4.3 per 100,000 people).
Something to think about while the same team which ran Bruce Rauner’s 2014 campaign are bringing us yet another candidate.
The prospect of disastrous Raunerite “governance” imposed on us again keeps me up at night. For starters, Richard Irvin and Ken Griffin need to be accessible to the news media.
- Andrea Durbin - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:04 pm:
Thank you for sharing this study. I suspect it is only one of many that will try to measure the lasting impact of the “natural experiment” of willfully withholding a state budget for political gain. So many young people lost their lives, so many families’ lives changed forever, the trauma rippling out across generations and communities. I sincerely hope that we don’t make this same mistake again.
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:06 pm:
“I’m frustrated too but taking steps to reform Illinois is more important than a short term budget stalemate”
- Ron Sandack, Twitter
Make no mistake. defunding or purposely wrecking Illinois was the feature, not the bug, and it was used to try to ruin labor.
These type of stories are the after effects of such a governing.
- Mr K - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:07 pm:
This might be a stupid question — and it only indirectly has to do with the topic — but what, specifically did Griffin get out of the Rauner years (and 2.5 year impasse).
What in Irvin (or Rauner) for Griffin? Is it just cash? Specific tax policies?
- Telly - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:17 pm:
The numbers are interesting and the conclusion is certainly plausible. But the standard “correlation does not equal causation” warning applies.
Some have blamed the dramatic decline of Cook County Jail’s daily inmate count and the IDOC population decrease for the increase in Chicago crime. I’m not sure a direct line can be drawn between any of these criminal justice data points. Human behavior is an immensely complicated thing.
- Google Is Your Friend - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:25 pm:
- Telly - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:17 pm:
Yeah, not like that’s listed in the study itself.
- Long year - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:29 pm:
“Something to think about while the same team which ran Bruce Rauner’s 2014 campaign are bringing us yet another candidate.” This x100.
It’s nearly impossible to actually measure just how much damage was done through years of budget inaction and miserable executive management. But I bet you can still find providers who can outline their challenges and directly point back to that period. We can’t go back to that and I don’t trust the team who plays politics just to win politics to think past their goal of winning to the actual governing part. Keeps me up at night too, Rich.
- sal-says - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:33 pm:
Griffin gets ? Power & Ego ?
- occasional observer - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:34 pm:
Reminds me of the daycare situation where Governor Rauner slashed assistance to the bone. How many thousands of families lost daycare that summer, over 40 thousand?
That was really getting ahead of the curve. Rauner didn’t need a global pandemic to blowup daycare, he saw the future and took action into his own hands
- Candy Dogood - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:37 pm:
Is it too cynical to suggest that they intentionally created an increase in crime so that they could blame it on others and then run against people based off of the crime problem?
- Homebody - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:48 pm:
Pretty much every Republican policy seems to be designed to make things worse for the majority of Americans.
We know how to prevent violence and reduce crime long term. It is almost exclusively tied to helping people before they go down those paths.
- Sonny - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:55 pm:
Sorry not sorry Rauner’s actions resulted in people dying. Fact.
- Lakefront Liberal - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:56 pm:
- Mr K - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:07 pm:
I just read a book called “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson and I feel it helps explain the “why”, because yes, money alone does not seem to explain it. Her theory, in a nutshell, is that for some people having a social structure where they are on top (or at least not on the bottom) is mandatory for their sense of self, so anything that allows the bottom rung to move up is a threat to them. They HAVE to make sure that social services are not provided, that health care and education are not equitable, that unions don’t flourish, etc, Anything else jeopardizes their core beliefs about how the world works.
I highly recommend that book!
- Bruce( no not him) - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 1:59 pm:
Bruce Rauner, the gift that keeps on giving.
- Steve - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 2:00 pm:
This is all very interesting data. I wonder what the numbers will be like in the COVID era with big increases in federal , state, and local spending?
- The Dude Abides - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 2:00 pm:
All the harm I did to Illinois would have been worth it if I could have just gotten rid of those damn Unions.
- Frank talks - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 2:09 pm:
The pain inflicted in the budget impasse was terrible for people in middle and lower incomes all over the state. From Universities, which are the economic engines in central and southern Illinois, almost shuttering. Funding for opioid addictions plaguing central and southern Illinois. Economic development grants for Main St Illinois being taken away. Central and Southern Illinois is so intent on proving they vote against their own self interest because of scare tactics like “cancel culture” “leftist agenda” etc it would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.
- Anyone Remember - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 2:15 pm:
The Dude Abides -
Think he would have settled for gutting Af-Scammy.
- Lt Guv - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 2:15 pm:
And they uncorked something that hasn’t been put back into the bottle and they’re only response to it is to shake their fists at clouds while within their echo chamber and point fingers at anyone they declare to be the “others.” Stand up people, those folks are. Why would anyone (banned use of letter cases implied) want to put those individuals back into power. It makes no sense at all, outside of a failed ideology.
- Amalia - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 2:26 pm:
well we know that Rauner’s actions were not good in lots of ways. whether this is the cause of increased youth violence is still out for me. needs more comparison across states. but even if it is, one thing that keeps going up when it comes to services for youths is even if you give more the refrain comes back “but they have to cross gang lines.” we can’t add because of that. there are lots of assets out there already. map them. parks, libraries, other recreational facilities, schools with programs, not for profits (yikes there are tons of those, we might truly map those alone and think $ loss). Chicago has tons of assets. do people use them?
- Give Me A Break - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 2:37 pm:
Will never forget the day a Rauner staffer called me to explain if we in the private sector human service world would get behind breaking state employee unions, there could be money enough to create a state of the art human service system ran by private sector providers.
This was after human services providers had gone almost 18 months without be paid and were borrowing money from banks to pay their staff.
- Pundent - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 2:50 pm:
So this time around Ken Griffin is going to solve the crime problem he helped perpetuate? Interesting.
- City Zen - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 3:20 pm:
And all this time Kim Foxx was taking credit for the decline. Should’ve known it was Bruce all along.
It’s an interesting study that, but begs the question of what the violence-prevention funding and corresponding youth homicide rates were beyond 2018.
- Da big bad wolf - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 3:24 pm:
=== It’s an interesting study that, but begs the question of what the violence-prevention funding and corresponding youth homicide rates were beyond 2018.===
You’ll have to wait a few more years. These studies always lag the numbers by several years.
- Da big bad wolf - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 3:26 pm:
=== And all this time Kim Foxx was taking credit for the decline. Should’ve known it was Bruce all along.===
Or Mike Madigan.
- City Zen - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 3:48 pm:
==You’ll have to wait a few more years.==
Why? The core principles and measurements of the study are already built. That was the hard part. The statistics within the study are readily available from other sources and can be easily applied.
It’s safe to assume state funding of violence prevention remained constant, at a minimum, under Pritzker. Yet I’d be surprised given the last two years if the homicide statistics back the assertions of this study. And given the decline of Chicago’s African American population, the stats are even worse.
- ChicagoBars - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 3:52 pm:
==You’ll have to wait a few more years.==
Alas State and municipal elections will be here rather sooner.
- Skeptic - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 3:54 pm:
“So this time around Ken Griffin is going to solve the crime problem he helped perpetuate? Interesting.” A losing hard-right Conservative is always blamed for losing because of “not being Conservative enough.” Maybe they’ll think that Rauner lost because he wasn’t Rauner-y enough and try to go that extra mile.
- JS Mill - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 4:00 pm:
You don’t need a study to see some of the effects of Rauner’s admin. During the Rauner admin the number of people taking educator licensing tests fell by 75%.
I note that while CZ may be disputing the study, he isn’t advocating that the Rauner admin made people’s lives better. Says a lot.
- charles in charge - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 4:20 pm:
Didn’t anyone tell the authors of this study that the cause of the homicide increase is a criminal justice bill that hasn’t been implemented yet?
- Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 4:32 pm:
Republicans are going to make crime their main campaign issue while flocking to Griffin for big bucks, the state’s richest resident who financed the shredding of social services and violence prevention programs. Real believable.
- Andrea Durbin - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 4:38 pm:
Funding isn’t a light switch that goes off and on. There is a state budgeting process. Contracts issued or perhaps new notices of funding posted, then orgs have to apply, be awarded, get a contract. Hire staff. Train staff. Rinse, wash, repeat. Rebuilding capacity takes time. And even though we got a state budget early in FY18, we did not see increased investments in youth, violence prevention, or communities until the beginning of FY20. Less than one year later - COVID hit. It’s been a ride.
- Frank talks - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 4:59 pm:
So is it no longer a Turnaround Agenda? Based on the commercial its a Take Back Agenda.
- Real - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 6:42 pm:
This Irvin guy seems like Ken Duncan 2.0
This coming from a fellow poc.
- Been There - Tuesday, Jan 25, 22 @ 6:47 pm:
Late to this discussion but Rahm’s decision to close half the city’s mental health clinics in 2012 didn’t help matters. I didn’t like Rahm personally but supported him because I thought his policy’s were ok. But that decision was a terrible one.
I know that was before Rauner but not my much. I suspect there is some correlation with that.