Examining black on black crime

By David Muhammad

Violent crime has long been a major concern for inner cities across the country. The recent tragic murder of well-known Bay Area journalist Chauncey Bailey allegedly by a young black man has once again highlighted the epidemic of black on black violence.

The city of Richmond surveyed its citizens recently, and topping residents’ concerns was the same as in many inner cities across the country: violent crime. For a small town, Richmond is plagued with big-city crime problems. The city earned the dubious distinction for several years as the “most dangerous” city in California until both Compton and Oakland edged it out in the latest annual study of crime statistics by the Morgan Quitno Press.

Richmond threatened to call a state of emergency in 2006 due to the violence, and the City Council later commissioned The Mentoring Center (TMC) to help establish an office of violence prevention. After an exhaustive 10-month process, TMC presented a detailed report on violence and proposed solutions in developing the Office of Neighborhood Safety. Though violence tops most big cities’concerns, when Richmond selects a director for the office and finalizes the structure, it will be one of the first cities in the country to create a city department solely for the purpose of combating and preventing violent crime. 
   

Violent crime is not an easy issue to tackle. The reasons for violence run deep and are extremely complex. Many of the causes cannot be addressed just within a city. National and even international music videos and radio stations promote violence, along with movies, magazines and video games. Meanwhile, the government perpetrates a war based on questionable retaliation, leaving children with a horrible example to follow. In the immortal words of Tupac Shakur, “They got money for wars but can’t feed the poor.” Violence is ingrained in the American culture, and like most of the ills of society, blacks suffer worse.

A recent Justice Department study revealed that though blacks make up just 13 percent of the country’s population, nearly half the people murdered in the United States each year are black. The study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics also found that from 2001 to 2005, more than nine out of 10 black murder victims were killed by other blacks — black on black crime is out of control. The study also showed that three out of four of those murdered were slain with a gun. In 2005 alone, blacks were victims of an estimated 8,000 homicides. 
   

The root causes are very well known: poverty, unemployment, substandard education, proliferation of liquor stores and easy access to drugs and guns. The individual reasons are much more complex: drug turf, competition over a woman, an argument over a basketball game, a mean stare, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The solutions have been short lived, underdeveloped, and inconsistent.

This is why The Globe has decided to publish a two year, in-depth examination of black on black crime. This is long-term commitment to look at the problem, propose solutions and highlight what’s working. Each week, we will have a lead or feature article, a “what’s working” article profiling a program that is successful in combating violence, a personal testimony from someone who has been affected by violence, and statistics on the rate of violence. We hope this series will inform, inspire and engage The Globe’s readership and ultimately make an impact on the epidemic of violence in the black community.

We welcome your feedback and your contributions.

You can view the series in the pages of The Globe and on the web here. 
PDF versions of the series are available for download there.

Email your comments or your entries to david@theglobenewspapers.com.

Originally published Sept. 5-11, 2007