Date of Award
Spring 2021
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Major
Political Science
First Advisor
Professor Anna Terwiel
Abstract
This thesis attempts to re-think the way lawmakers, policy makers, and everyday Chicagoans look at and talk about gun violence in Chicago. I attempt to do this by taking a historical approach where Chicago's history of housing and police discrimination against its black communities is outlined. In doing this, I seek to show that many of the factors that are driving violence in the city's black neighborhoods - such as legal cynicism and concentrated inequalities - were created by this discriminatory past. Urban gun violence in Chicago is heavily concentrated in and driven by its black neighborhoods. After taking a history approach, we will see there is a reason for this: racial discrimination. A new anti-racist perspective of Chicago's violence will follow which, I argue, makes us see black gun violence perpetrators as more than just criminals but victims of an unequal racial divide created by a racist past. The public policy solutions that follow from this new perspective - specifically anti-violence programs - will be discussed.
Recommended Citation
Bilicic, Christopher, "Understanding the Complexities and Origins of Gun Violence in Chicago". Senior Theses, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 2021.
Trinity College Digital Repository, https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/866
Included in
American Politics Commons, Criminology Commons, Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons, Social Justice Commons, United States History Commons
Comments
Senior thesis completed at Trinity College, Hartford CT for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.