Some facts:
– Crime typically increases during summer months and decreases during winter months. That is a general crime trend and is not specific to Chicago.
– Chicago is the most studied city in all of the criminology. The University of Chicago emerged as the preeminent Sociology (and by extension, Criminology) department in the US in the early 1920s. The professors there studied what was happening locally and influenced the next several generations of scholars.
– The patterns you see in Chicago crime have not changed much since the 1930s. Shaw and McKay’s Social Disorganization Theory is based on their study of Chicago crime in the 1930s. Over several decades, they mapped out juvenile delinquency in Chicago and found that the rates were highest in the same neighborhoods year after year after year. We’re talking a 40-50 year period where the same neighborhoods experienced the majority of crime.
