Our
wonderful teacher, Mrs. Dunn, has given this project to us. This project is all
about worrying less about yourself, and more about different issues that are
going on in the world, or in this country, or even in your own neighborhoods.
So with that I am going to jump right into the issue at hand. Now my issue is
on somewhat of a bigger scale than just my own neighborhood, this issue
includes all of Philadelphia, and that issue is, the continuously growing homicide
rate in Philadelphia, and that among teens towards each other.
This
is an increasingly troubling topic, and very interesting and alarming to me.
Not only do I know people who have died due to useless teen violence, but also
I have seen how these deaths can impact the family members of those diseased.
For these reasons, teenage homicides, as well as all homicides in Philadelphia have
a great personal, and interesting touch on me, and it should you as well.
The
Philadelphia homicide rate was the highest in 2010 throughout the entire
country, with a 19.6% homicide rate. This is nothing compared to the fact that
so far there has been 122 homicides in Philadelphia alone. Considering it is
only May, this is a staggering total. You also see that since it is only about
half way through the year, if this rate stays the same, we will have over 250
homicides by the end of the year. That is 250 people who died due to the
selfishness of others, and who obviously died before their times. If that
weren’t enough, here are more staggering statistics about the homicides in
Philly over the past few years:
·
In 2011 there was a total of 324 homicides in
Philadelphia with a 20.7% homicide rate, which was more than any other large
city.
·
Philadelphia has had 1,654 homicides over the
past 5 years, with 2007, being the worst year, with 391 homicides that year
alone.
·
During 2006 and 2007, Philadelphia was the only
city with a population of over 1,000,000 to be on the 10 most murderous cities
list.
So
from this you can see that the homicide rate in Philadelphia is a serious
issue. Although I am not yet an expert on this topic, I would like to try and
become one by learning more about Philadelphia and its unbelievable murder
rate. Some things that I still question and would like to learn are; where in
Philadelphia is there the most murders? What nationality of people is doing the
most murdering? What age group does the most murdering and how can we change
this so that it doesn’t happen more often?
Here are all of my sources at this link.