Jacology – The Reasons St. Louis Is So Dangerous

ST. LOUIS, MO (KPLR) – 113 people were murdered in St. Louis in 2012. People in Chicago were horrified that there were 500 murders there this year. People in New York City were relieved that there were only 414 murders in the Big Apple last year. Amateurs. If St. Louis were the size of Chicago we would have had over 1,100 murders not a measly 500. And if St. Louis were the size of New York, we would have had almost 2,900 murders; not just 414.

Based on just murders you could say that St. Louis is more than twice as dangerous as Chicago and more than seven times as danmgerous as New York. On one hand, St. Louis has always been a violent town. Our rate of murders per 100,000 people has been among the nation’s highest for over half a century.

What makes us so much deadlier than other places?  One reason is St. Louis has a higher percentage of poor people with low educations than most other cities. We have a higher infant mortality rate than most cities. We have a higher sexually transmitted disease rate. We have a whole lot of things that come from combining poverty with a lousy education.

Another reason is we keep making excuses. We keep saying, oh, the statistics are bad. Other cities are bigger, other cities have a larger middle class, other cities blah blah blah. All that may be true but it doesn’t get to the heart of the pathologies thast make St. Louis more dangerous than most american cities.

It’s a new year. The city has a new police chief with new law enforcement plans. But we still have a whole lot of people, mostly black, male, young, with little education, lousy neighborhoods, questionable family support, not much cash and lots of firearms. There’s the problem.

I’m Charles Jaco and that’s Jacology.