The Safety Gap: Neighborhood Homicide Inequality in Chicago, 1992–2025 (WP-26-20)
Noli Brazil, Shaun Bhatia, Tony Cheng, and Andrew Papachristos
Importance. The US recently experienced unprecedented declines in homicide, yet gains may not be shared equitably across neighborhoods: Relative inequality in neighborhood homicide rates can widen even as citywide rates fall, with serious public health consequences.
Objective. To examine changes in neighborhood homicide inequality in Chicago and characterize spatial persistence of high- and low-homicide neighborhoods from 1992 through 2025, spanning the crime decline, the COVID-19 homicide surge, and the subsequent decrease.
Design, Setting, and Participants. Descriptive time-series analysis of neighborhood-level homicide rates across Chicago’s 342 neighborhood clusters from 1992 through 2025. Geocoded homicide records were obtained from the Chicago Police Department. Population denominators were derived from decennial censuses and the American Community Survey.
Exposures. Calendar year and neighborhood homicide rate percentile, operationalized as annual city-neighborhood panels derived from three-year population-adjusted homicide rates.
Main Outcomes and Measures. Absolute and relative measures of neighborhood homicide inequality, including: ratios of homicide rates between neighborhoods in the top 10th percentile (N=35) and both the bottom 30th percentile (N=103) and the rest of the city (N=307); the Gini index of homicide rate distribution; percentile-stratified homicide rate trends; and maps of neighborhood membership in the highest and lowest homicide rate groups in 2000 and 2025.
Results. Chicago's citywide homicide rate reached a study-period low of 15.1 per 100,000 in 2025. Despite this improvement, relative inequality in neighborhood homicide rates increased markedly, particularly from 2021 to 2025. The ratio of homicide rates between neighborhoods in the top 10th percentile and those in the bottom 30th percentile increased 143%, from 1.58 in 2021 to 3.84 in 2025, the highest value observed in the study period. Neighborhoods on Chicago's west and south sides consistently comprised the highest homicide areas in both 2000 and 2025.
Conclusions and Relevance. Despite a multi-decade homicide low in 2025, Chicago's decline was concentrated in already-safe neighborhoods, producing the study period's highest level of neighborhood homicide inequality. This widening safety gap underscores the need for targeted public health and violence prevention strategies addressing the structural conditions sustaining homicide concentration in the city's most disadvantaged communities.