Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence
University of Chicago Press, 2025
eISBN: 978-0-226-83948-6 | Cloth: 978-0-226-82813-8
Library of Congress Classification HV6493.L83 2025
See other books on: Criminal behavior | Gun control | Ludwig, Jens | Urban & Regional | Violence in Society
See other titles from University of Chicago Press
eISBN: 978-0-226-83948-6 | Cloth: 978-0-226-82813-8
Library of Congress Classification HV6493.L83 2025
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
What if everything we understood about gun violence was wrong?
In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago to research a big question: why does gun violence happen, and is there anything we can do about it? Almost two decades later, the answers aren’t what he expected. Unforgiving Places is Ludwig’s revelatory portrait of gun violence in America’s most famously maligned city.
Disproving the popular narrative that shootings are the calculated acts of malicious or desperate people, Ludwig shows how most shootings actually grow out of a more fleeting source: interpersonal conflict, especially arguments. By examining why some arguments turn tragic and others don’t, Ludwig reveals gun violence in America to be more comprehensible—and more solvable—than our traditional approaches suggest.
Drawing on decades of research and Ludwig’s immersive fieldwork in Chicago, including “countless hours in schools, parks, playgrounds, housing developments, courtrooms, jails, police stations, police cars, and lots and lots of McDonald’s,” Unforgiving Places is a breakthrough work at the cutting edge of behavioral economics. As Ludwig shows, progress on gun violence doesn’t require America to solve every other social problem first; it only requires that we find ways to intervene in the places and the ten-minute windows where human behaviors predictably go haywire.
In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago to research a big question: why does gun violence happen, and is there anything we can do about it? Almost two decades later, the answers aren’t what he expected. Unforgiving Places is Ludwig’s revelatory portrait of gun violence in America’s most famously maligned city.
Disproving the popular narrative that shootings are the calculated acts of malicious or desperate people, Ludwig shows how most shootings actually grow out of a more fleeting source: interpersonal conflict, especially arguments. By examining why some arguments turn tragic and others don’t, Ludwig reveals gun violence in America to be more comprehensible—and more solvable—than our traditional approaches suggest.
Drawing on decades of research and Ludwig’s immersive fieldwork in Chicago, including “countless hours in schools, parks, playgrounds, housing developments, courtrooms, jails, police stations, police cars, and lots and lots of McDonald’s,” Unforgiving Places is a breakthrough work at the cutting edge of behavioral economics. As Ludwig shows, progress on gun violence doesn’t require America to solve every other social problem first; it only requires that we find ways to intervene in the places and the ten-minute windows where human behaviors predictably go haywire.
See other books on: Criminal behavior | Gun control | Ludwig, Jens | Urban & Regional | Violence in Society
See other titles from University of Chicago Press
