The Danger of Living in U.S. Cities for Young Men | RealClearPennsylvania

How dangerous are these hot spots? A different set of quantitative researchers, including respected professors Brandon del Pozo and Aaron Chalfin, addressed this issue, asking a fundamental question: How does the risk of firearm-related death and injury for young adult males in parts of major cities in the United States compare to the corresponding risks faced by military personnel deployed to war in Iraq and Afghanistan? In other words, what is more dangerous, the battlefield or American cities?

The results were disturbing. In 2020-21, young adult males from zip codes with the most violence in Chicago and Philadelphia had a notably higher risk of firearm-related death than US military personnel who served during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those at greatest risk were black and Hispanic men. Even soldiers serving in one of the most dangerous Army brigade combat teams, ones that saw constant wartime engagements, had a better chance of living through the year than 18-29-year-old men in the worst parts of these American cities. To make the point even clearer, a young man living in the most violent zip code in Chicago has a 5.8% chance every year of being shot.

The grim truth is that being a young man on a bad block in North Philly or the South Side of Chicago is statistically more dangerous than being a young man assigned to a combat battalion in Iraq or Afghanistan during those wars. Think about the logic of these studies in the context of that old-time justice referenced above. If a judge in Chicago or Philadelphia had the choice of sending a young man convicted of a crime to prison, to war, or home on probation, it turns out that the quantitatively safest place would be prison.

via www.realclearpennsylvania.com

Yikes.