Have read an article about crime in Hamilton, Ohio during prohibition

http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/lo...f-citys-/nNZQk/

and there is a quote:


Could somebody tell which are the other American cities nicknamed "Little Chicago" for their crime rate? If they are 16, this article lists 4 and adds Hamilton, leaving other 11. Any ideas which ones might that be? Google isn't that helpful unlike the author says.

Sheffield England and Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada.

I often hear people at work refer to Chicago as Chi-raq in reference to the amount of gun violence in that city.

Funny they always seem to refer to Chicago when they talk about any violent city in any western country. In Belgium they call the city of Charleroi "Chicago at the Sambre" because of its violent reputation.

I was born and have lived in Decatur, IL my whole life. Most of you have probably never heard of it, but it's directly central in Illinois and has a population of about 75,000-76,000. There's a pretty high crime rate out here. For as long as I can remember, everyone here has called it "Little Chicago". I guess it was also a fairly speak-easy town during prohibition. Supposedly guys from The Outfit and gangsters from St. Louis used this place as a cool off spot. I don't know if I necessarily believe that but I'm a member or two from The Outfit has been out this way. Also supposedly Al Capone came here a time or two...I don't believe that one lol.

One more piece of trivia:

There's a very small town called Maroa about ten or fifteen miles from Decatur; Dion (Dean) O'Banion was born there.

I saw a book on amazon called "Wicked Decatur"; the introduction says in the 10s and 20s it had the second crime rate in the state after Chicago. Have you read it, is it interesting?
By the way, did Decatur have a mafia representative or any other crime boss (even if not Cosa Nostra) who controlled the whole city during prohibition?

Maybe they aren't referring to today's Chicago by that comparison, but to prohibition Chicago, when Al Capone was still there and almost no gangland murders were ever solved.

Hell if I know, man. All I've heard is rumors. But if it was a big crime/speak-easy town, there had to be someone running it.

I don't even know if chicago is the most dangerous city in America. Detroit and Camden are both as bad is it gets.

I thought New Orleans was worse.

Yeah, I mean Decatur's crime is pretty high for a town less than 100,000 but it's nowhere near the most dangerous. Maybe on a top 200 list. Of course all the "thugs" act like it is.

Idk I'm sure it has its bad parts. But camden and detroit have been pretty bad for a while. If you look at the most dangerous cities today conpared to the most dangerous parts of New York, Jersey and other parts of the U.S. back in the 70s, 80s, and early to mid 90s though, this country has come a long way with crime. The worst parts of the country probably look like candy land compared to what the most dangerous parts used to look like back in the day. Newark, parts of New York city, detroit, miami as well as other cities from that day and age would make chicago look good in terms of crime. And I'm not glorifying it or living off of nostalgia from those days, I'm just saying that people should be grateful that "the most dangerous" neihborhoods today aren't as bad as "the most dangerous" neighborhoods back in the day. We're definitely making progress as a country in the crime department.

Memphis was murder capitol of the 1920s, more dangerous than NYC. That speak volumes per say.

Believe it or not, New Orleans murder and crime rate dropped after Hurricane Katrina due to half of the city being flooded and the government basically bused out everyone in the lower class projects to Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Houston.

They didn't really solve anything just moved crime to other cities

I'm not shocked about the high crime rate in dead-catuer. There isn't much of anything to do there. They probably also have a high teen preggo rate. It seems like a lot of these small towns that people like to call the "real America" have some these problems far worse than the intercities.

I was there once and it seems like the only thing to do there at night is stare at the mill in the middle of town.