An anatomy of hard times in the city

Sitting at a table in the kitchen of Chicago cred, a charity working with young men at risk of committing or becoming victims of violence, Isaac Israel, who lives in the south of the city, explains why somebody in his situation might want to carry a weapon. “I feel like as long as the criminals have a gun, I should have a gun,” he says. “What I’m seeing as a civilian, is you gotta protect yourself…in our neighbourhoods, the police only come after what happens.” Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, he says, “is about survival”. “I look at it like being in the military, because we have war every day on our streets, but it don’t get announced, it don’t get talked about.”