For the past year, The Temple News collected and analyzed gun violence data in North Philadelphia near Main and Health Sciences campuses.
Gun violence has a deep and long-lasting effect on the people and communities it impacts. To explore and understand how much gun violence Temple and its surrounding community, we collected data on gun-related crimes and shooting victims published by the City of Philadelphia.
In August, The Temple News explained the boundaries it set for the data collection: to study the area populated most densely by students who live off campus and community residents’ homes. This border includes the university’s biggest campuses in the city: Main Campus and the Health Sciences Campus.
The border extends north from Girard Avenue to Pike and Luzerne streets and east from 21st Street to 6th Street. The border includes off-campus student residences and community residents’ homes.
In Philadelphia, the 22nd, 23rd, 25th, 26th and 39th police districts have the most shootings occur. Together, they’ve dealt with almost 30 percent of all the city’s gun violence in the past 12 years. All of these districts are near Temple’s North Philadelphia campuses.
On average, there were two instances of gun-related crimes almost every single day.
The Philadelphia Police Department identifies four types of gun-related crimes in its data: aggravated assault with a firearm, robbery with a firearm, weapons violations and homicide.
THE VICTIMS OF GUN VIOLENCE
Between April 1, 2017 and March 31, 2018, there were 264 victims of gun violence in the area The Temple News analyzed. However, there are groups of people who are more likely to be injured or killed by a shooting.
Black men aged 18 to 35 made up 39 percent of all the victims of gun violence in the area the Temple News studied. Throughout the city, they make up nearly 60 percent of the victims.
Nearly 20 percent of all the shootings were fatal.
However, gun violence within the Temple News’ border did extend to any and every demographic of person living in the boundaries. The youngest victim was a 3 year old, who survived a shooting on Oct. 21, 2017.
And while about 70 percent of the victims were Black, 23 percent were Latinx and 7 percent were white.
This story will be updated in late September 2018 with reporting on the impact of gun violence on peoples’ lives.
Read our article launching the project here.
Here’s why we’re doing it.
If you have a story about how you or someone you know has been affected by or involved in gun violence, email news@temple-news.com.