Jens Ludwig and Chief Bill Scott | The Unexpected Origins of Gun Violence

Video Description

In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago to research two big questions: 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. Ludwig says his research disproves the popular narrative that shootings are the calculated acts of malicious or desperate people; he says it shows most shootings actually grow out of a more fleeting source: interpersonal conflict, especially arguments. By examining why some arguments turn tragic while others don't, Ludwig says gun violence is more circumstantial—and more solvable—than our traditional approaches lead us to believe. Drawing on decades of research and Ludwig’s immersive fieldwork in Chicago, including “countless hours spent in schools, parks, playgrounds, housing developments, courtrooms, jails, police stations, police cars, and lots and lots of McDonald'ses,” Ludwig joins us with San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott to discuss his work in behavioral economics. As Ludwig says, 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 10-minute windows where human behaviors predictably go haywire. April 23, 2025 Speakers Jens Ludwig Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy; Pritzker Director, the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab; Author, Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence Bill Scott San Francisco Police Chief In Conversation with Steven Raphael Professor of Public Policy and the Faculty Director, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California, Berkeley Ludwig photo by University of Chicago. Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs. In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, CCWA reaches it's wide-ranging audiences through these Social media platforms