Social Media Transforms the Way Chicago Fights Gang Violence

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is figuring out exactly who is likeliest to kill and be killed in each district. Using a tool academics call “network analysis,” the CPD is using social media to map the relationships among Chicago’s 14,000 most active gang members. It’s also ranking how likely those people are to be involved in a homicide, either as victims or offenders. In the process, the CPD has discovered something striking: Cities don’t so much have “hot spots” as “hot people.” That finding is transforming the way the police do business in Chicago and has significant implications for how other cities should be policed. As of late July, Chicago had experienced 76 fewer murders than it did in 2012. Victims of gunfire were down by an even greater number -- 350. Summer wasn’t over, but if the trends continued, Chicago’s violent crime level would fall to levels not seen since the early 1960s. And that would suggest that social-network policing is the future of crime fighting.