Media Justice Blog

CPS anti-violence program takes off, slowly

As CJ lay in a hospital last winter nursing a gunshot wound to his arm, the prospect of graduating from high school seemed a distant dream for the skinny Roseland teen. Mostly left to his own devices, he had drifted to the streets at an early age and often skipped school, since attending class required crossing a web of gang lines that conflicted with his own affiliations.
Five months later, CJ rarely misses a day, participates in class and is on track to graduate. He credits his turnaround to an ambitious program launched by Chicago Public Schools this school year to stem youth violence.

Tags: chicago tribune, church involvement, CPS, Farragut Career Academy, gang violence, government involvement, gun violence, Hyde Park high, invisible boundaries, june 2010, male, manley high school, murder, noble network charter school, non CPS, Roseland, school violence, south side, street violence, tilden high school, youth voices

Chicago’s real crime story – City Journal

This past September, a cell-phone video of Chicago students beating a fellow teen to death coursed over
the airwaves and across the Internet. None of the news outlets that had admiringly reported on Obama’s
community-organizing efforts mentioned that the beating involved students from the very South Side
neighborhoods where the president had once worked. Obama’s connection to the area was suddenly lost
in the mists of time.

Tags: 10-15, 15-19, African American, carver high, chicago reader, church involvement, city journal, CPS, criminal charges, drugs, family violence, fatherlessness, fenger high school, gang violence, government involvement, gun violence, invisible boundaries, january 2010, male, murder, police involvement, poverty, robeson high school, roseland, school violence, sexual violence, south side, street violence, the ville, west side

Teens Shot in Chicago Schools

Two students from the same school, both killed, both in frightening ways, only months apart. For the city of Chicago tonight more evidence that violence on the streets there, especially among teenagers, is not over.

Tags: 15-19, African American, CBS, Chicago, community involvement, CPS, fenger high school, gang violence, government involvement, gun violence, invisible boundaries, january 2010, keyc.tv, male, murder, police involvement, street violence, youth voices

the gantlet

Before they crack a textbook or enter a school's doors, most public high school students in Chicago have already taken their first test of the day. To make it to school, students crisscross streets carved up by gangs, board buses at chaotic stops and steer clear of particularly dangerous swaths of the neighborhood. They do so with a chilling indifference. Gangs, guns and drugs stir neighborhood violence so routine that many of the 116,000 high school students have grown numb to it.

Tags: 15-19, African American, Chicago, chicago tribune, CPS, crane high school, drugs, englewood high school, fenger high school, gang violence, gun violence, invisible boundaries, male, murder, october 2009, street violence, west side, youth voices

who is gonna change it?

Bruce McFall descended the stairs of his South Pullman home just before sunrise. He stepped out into a slight drizzle and walked down his quiet block to 123rd Street, then east to Halsted Street to catch the first of two buses that would carry him to school.
The 17-year-old passes drug houses, vacant lots and abandoned homes where rotted plywood covers windows and doors. One street, 123rd, is the dividing line between two gangs. The risks barely register.

Tags: 15-19, African American, carliss high school, Chicago, chicago tribune, CPS, drugs, gang violence, invisible boundaries, male, october 2009, south pullman, south side, street violence, youth voices

i know what i am doing-they’re not going to shoot girls

Crystal Magana said she was a third-grader when she learned which gangs operate where in Little Village. Those lessons serve her well as the freshman makes the mile long walk back home from Little Village Lawndale High School. On the way, she'll often stop to talk to young men she knows to be in gangs.

Tags: 15-19, African American, Chicago, chicago tribune, community involvement, CPS, female, gang violence, hispaniclatino, invisible boundaries, lawndale high school, little village, male, mexican american, north lawndale, october 2009, racial violence, youth voices

Youth Violence Puts School Safety in Jeopardy

Host Michel Martin discusses the risks that students face in trying to get an education with civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Colbert King, of The Washington Post.

Tags: 15-19, African American, Chicago, church involvement, community involvement, CPS, drugs, emotional violence, Englewood, fenger high school, gang violence, government involvement, gun violence, invisible boundaries, male, murder, NPR, october 2009, police

Youth Killings Reach Crisis Level in Chicago

Young people in Chicago are dying violent deaths at an alarming rate. So far this school year, at least 36 Chicago Public School students have been killed, most of them victims of gunshots. Scores of other Chicago children and teenagers have been wounded in shootings, and there are concerns that the gun violence could escalate when school is out for the summer in a few weeks.

Tags: 15-19, African American, Chicago, church involvement, community involvement, CPS, gang violence, gun violence, invisible boundaries, male, may 2009, murder, NPR, police involvement, simeon career academy, south side, street violence, youth voices

508 Chicago kids shot in just 16 months

A total of 508 Chicago school kids were shot from September 2007 through December 2008,according to data compiled by the school system and released to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Tags: Chicago Sun Times, CPS, invisible boundaries, march 2009, non CPS