Hell's Kitchen and the Capeman Murder
Hell's Kitchen is the section of Manhattan that is between 34th and 59th Streets and from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River. It was the home of New York's most dangerous criminals from the early tenement days to Prohibition to the Westies. The population consisted of poor people who lived in a disorderly fashion and expressed themselves with a demanding spirit. Mayhem and reports of criminal homicide from the late nineteenth century on supply a good idea of daily life in Hell's Kitchen. These reports illustrate a neighborhood full of crime, poverty, religious worship, hard work and family commitment. " Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings divided by race, ethnicity, and neighborhood boundaries but united by common styles, slang, and codes of honor. They fought and sometimes killed to expand their territory. The youth gangs were a colorful and controversial part of the urban landscape made famous by the West Side Story and infamous by the media" (Schneider, 1959). The violence and the gangs on the streets formed ethnic ties as well as disparities among the people that led to a great amount of hostility and extreme violence.
But before the gang wars began, there were some contributing factors that led to this hostility among the society. The first major change, in 1851, was due to the construction of a Hudson River Railroad station at the future site of 30th Street and 10th Avenue. Many Irish and German immigrants (the latter escaping the Great Potato Famine) filled the area and went to work in the Railroad yards, West Side breweries, factories, slaughterhouses, warehouses, backyards and on the docks. The soaring population reached over 350,000 by the start of the Civil War, most w...
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...s a result of this instance, led to by many others.
The combination of ethnic groups has changed over the years but the mixed use, mixed income, mixed cultural background of the neighborhood still remains very similar. A radical change that has taken place is that the number of children attending school has greatly increase and this has had an inverse affect on crime and gang formations and related crime and homicide.
Today the neighborhood still holds some of its dark areas and tough streets but the amount of gang violence has decreased dramatically and educated youths are making a positive change within the neighborhood.
Bibliography
Schneider, Eric C. Vampires, Dragons and Egyptian Kings Princeton University Press, New York. 1959
http://hellskitchen.net/resource/history/brendle/crime.htm
http://www.midtownmedia.com/chronicle/Hkhistory.htm
In the neighborhood I live is in the Koreatown / Wilshire Center and haven’t experience a lot of crime which is also part of the low crime rate in the neighborhood. Also the police presence here in my neighborhood is very light and the relations with the police is normal. The only time the police will be serious if the crime is too dangerous and concern for the neighborhood is first. It is also different from his description from the gang violence and presence in the area I live in is very light not like other neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The difference is also the race in the area is different and comprised of mostly Asian and White which we are at a friendly relation with little to no disturbance of crime and gang violence. This also included poverty in the neighborhood I live in is very light and there is not a lot of poor people in the area. It also different the community which is very friendly and everyone is not that all cautious or worry. If there were a crime we will be notified ahead to be prepared of the concern of safety. From the description how Victor Rios described the neighborhood is almost similar to a few neighborhood of Los Angeles such as the East Los Angeles and the Compton area of Los Angeles. I had visited these area when I was riding the public transportation through these area to reach to the destination. I noticed that the area
In chapter one Stuntz discusses the rise of violence in the early nineteenth and twentieth century, and the arrival of European immigrants, along with African Americans heading north. This also caused a drift between all immigrant groups, young immigrant males began to have rival gangs, also along with no care from the government. In the early
One of the theories that is associated with this school is the “Concentric Zone Theory”, which states that some of the highest crime rates will occur in the zone in transition (Lilly, 2012, p. 40). This is shown in the film when looking at the neighborhoods where much of the crime occurs. These neighborhoods are full of families that live in or close to poverty (Kotlowitz, 2012). The violence interrupters were taking a large step in trying to solve many of these problems, much like Shaw and McKay, with neighborhood organization (Lilly, 2012, p. 41). The group of people in the film would walk around and talk to citizens within the community and try and explain to them that violence was not the answer. They wanted the youth and the people on the streets to know that situations could be handled differently and one way to stop the violence that was occurring was by calling a ceasefire. The Chicago School of Criminology also explains that “juveniles were often drawn into crime through their association with older siblings or gang members” (Lilly, 2012, p. 41). Many of the youth that were involved in crimes in the film had history of crimes in their families. Some, like the people in the violence interrupters group, were able to escape the life of violence and continue to share their story and hopefully help people. Much of the crimes throughout the show were based on blood
...sues causing an increase in the popularity and intensity of youth gang activity in targeted neighborhoods. This program has taken a bold, integrative approach to dealing with the issue of increasing membership and participation with gangs. The research findings for this program have supported the notion of its success and make assumptions about its continued success in the future. The program has shown to be of great value to those in the program and should continue to receive support and funding from government agencies and community members.
Dumenil, Lynn, ed. "New York City." The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History. N.p.: Oxford UP, 2012. Oxford Reference. Web. 8 Apr. 2013.
Gang involvement has been quite higher than past years. The 2008 National Youth Gang Survey estimates that about 32.4 percent of all cities, suburban areas, towns, and rural counties had a gang problem (Egley et al., 2010). This represented a 15 percent increase from the year 2002. The total number of gangs has also increased by 28 percent and total gang members have increased by 6 percent (Egley et al., 2010). This shows how relevant gang related activity is in today’s society. More locations are beginning to experience gang activity for the first time. Gang crime has also been on the rise in the past...
These crime-ridden communities (or ghettos) are springing up all through the country, mainly in and around major metropolitan areas. These areas are the most populated, so that means that within these areas are the most people there to be influenced by the crimes committed by fellow people. In Male's reading he shows statistics that prove the fact that once the poverty factor is taken away then teen violence disappears. He later adds, “That if America wants to rid of juvenile violence than serious consideration needs to be given to the societally inflicted violence of raising three to 10 times more youth in poverty than other Western nations.” (Males p386)
The presence of gang violence has been a long lasting problem in Philadelphia. Since the American Revolution, gangs have been overpopulating the streets of Philadelphia (Johnson, Muhlhausen, 2005). Most gangs in history have been of lower class members of society, and they often are immigrants into the U.S (Teen Gangs, 1996). Gangs provided lower class teens to have an opportunity to bond with other lower class teens. However over time, the original motive of being in a gang has changed. In the past, gangs used to provide an escape for teens to express themselves, let out aggression, and to socialize with their peers. It was also an opportunity for teens to control their territory and fit in (Johnson, Muhlhausen, 2005). In the past, authorities would only focus on symptoms of gang violence and not the root. They would focus on arresting crime members instead of preventing gang violence. Gangs are beginning to expand from inner-city blo...
The theoretical models highlighted the process in which each levels work. For instance, there are levels such as: individual, family, school, peer, and community that helps shape a child’s life. The first model is the institutional resources which shows that neighborhood influences work by the means of quality, quantity, social, recreational, health, employment resources in the community, education, and diversity of learning. The second model shows the relationship of how parental attributes. The second model went into diverse ways a family operates in terms of family routines, discipline, and the togetherness in a household. The third explores collective efficacy which means the ability of the people in the neighborhood to control the behavior and acts of individual and groups in the community. It brings into perspective why some communities come together to fight crime and problems while others do
Overall, Studies show that schools who try and keep their students in school and away from bad resources, improve academically. Through time, gangs and gang activity have evolved and set the path for how things remain today.
Therefore, the community has informal social control, or the connection between social organization and crime. Some of the helpful factors to a community can be informal surveillance, movement-governing rules, and direct intervention. They also contain unity, structure, and integration. All of these qualities are proven to improve crime rate. Socially disorganized communities lack those qualities. According to our lecture, “characteristics such as poverty, residential mobility, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity contribute to social disorganization.” A major example would be when a community has weak social ties. This can be caused from a lack of resources needed to help others, such as single-parent families or poor families. These weak social ties cause social disorganization, which then leads higher levels of crime. According to Seigel, Social disorganization theory concentrates on the circumstances in the inner city that affect crimes. These circumstances include the deterioration of the neighborhoods, the lack of social control, gangs and other groups who violate the law, and the opposing social values within these neighborhoods (Siegel,
...tal factors poor, urban, minority youths commit more crimes. Researchers also must be aware that crime is changing due to technology. There is now more instances of cyber theft, and computer crimes than in the past, therefore the dynamics of the people that are capable to commit certain sorts of crimes are changing.
283). This community is made up of so many people including of immigrants who comes in hope of a better live but things are not as easy as they would have hoped it to be. There are also constant wars with the police. According to Haas & Hahn (2014), they state, “during that time, another war broke out between the police and the drug gangs” (Haas & Hahn, 2014, 03:40). There is a struggle for power in this community. The gangs wants to be in charge and they cannot if the police are there and they just keep fight and the fight does not just affects them but it also affects the community as a whole because they cannot function they way that they ought to
As a direct result of the “fear” of white people, more police officers were hired for both the schools and city, communities of color became more hyper-policed, gang injunctions and zero-tolerance policies were implemented and gentrification began. Through gentrification alone, communities began to be rebuilt, rent prices increased, and while the people that could not afford to live in their community anymore had to relocate, the city began attracting affluent white people to own the new “reconstructed”
New York City has become a much safer city. The city is filled with immigrants from a variety of countries. There is a spread of different languages, cultural food, entertainment, and neighborhoods. Walking through the streets in any of the five boroughs feel much safer than the 1990’s. The nineties had a lot of drugs, illegal weapons, prostitution on the streets. This made majority of people in the community afraid and an unsafe environment especially for children. In The City That Became Safe, Franklin Zimring analyzes that individual and aggregate crime rates can change without removing or incarcerating more offenders in New York City. From 1990-2009, New York City has seen a diminution in crime compared to other cities. Major changes in the police department led to decreasing crime rates. Some of these changes included the growth of police officers and police strategies. Zimring divides the book into three sections: Part one discusses the decline in crime from 1990-2009 and compares the current situations in New York City to other cities, Part two seeks for an explanation of the decline of crime in New York compared to other big cities after 1990, and lastly Part three discusses the implications of New York’s experience on the nature of crime