On any given day, over 90 percent of those who have committed violent crimes are walking the streets
To refer to Chicago as a haven for criminals is an understatement. Today, despite Mayor Brandon Johnson’s pious announcements to the contrary, Chicago remains one of the most dangerous cities in America. While there are underlying causes of crime — such as failing schools, underinvestment, and weak economic possibilities — that the city has failed to address, the undeniable truth is that there are fewer and fewer consequences for increasingly serious crimes. Meanwhile, a powerful "Criminal Industrial Complex" profits from this system — one that makes Chicagoans and visitors less safe every day.
The state of crime in Chicago
Chicago is the crime capital of the nation, leading all U.S. cities in both murders and mass shootings year after year. If Chicago were a state, it would rank second only to California in mass shootings.
In 2023, 76 school-age children (17 years and younger) were murdered in Chicago — more than in any other city. Chicago also leads the nation in murders committed by youth.
While city leaders boast about a decline in murders over the past two years — a trend mirrored nationwide — Chicago still ranks third from last among major cities with populations of 250,000 or more. Meanwhile, overall violent crime continues to rise.
The city is also facing a domestic violence crisis. In 2023, there were 13,969 female victims of violent crimes such as assault, battery, criminal sexual assault, robbery, and homicide—an alarming 26 percent increase over the average of the previous three years.
Hate crimes have skyrocketed, increasing by 275 percent since 2020. The Anti-Defamation League reported a 74 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2023 — the highest number ever recorded since the organization began tracking such crimes in 1979.
Even these depressing statistics significantly underestimate the full scope of crime in Chicago. The city’s dwindling police force can now respond to only 50 percent of the most urgent 911 calls — down from 81 percent in 2019. With fewer police available, many crimes simply go unreported.
Fewer consequences, more crime
The lack of police response is only part of the problem. Chicago’s criminal justice system now actively discourages arrests and minimizes the consequences of even the most serious crimes. Restraints on proactive policing — imposed by the Consent Decree and the SAFE-T Act — have driven arrest rates to historic lows. In 2024, arrests were made in just a paltry five percent of violent crime cases.
Even when arrests are made, offenders are often released back onto the streets. Former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx declined to pursue felony charges at three times the rate of her predecessor. More than 70 percent of those arrested for felonies were granted pre-trial release — and that was before the SAFE-T Act eliminated cash bail entirely.
On any given day, a jaw-dropping 95+ percent of violent offenders in Chicago are walking free — the vast majority of them never even identified or charged. Those who are arrested and granted pre-trial release routinely skip court dates without consequence. Protective orders issued against domestic abusers are rarely enforced, leaving victims exposed to further violence. When police are able to respond, they often find themselves in an impossible "catch-22," frequently sued by the abusers they arrest, and when they don’t arrest, by the domestic violence victims.
A report by CWB Chicago found that almost 400 people arrested for murder and attempted murder were out on pre-trial bail for another felony at the time they were charged. That number is likely five times higher by virtue of the fact that the “combined” arrests for murder and attempted murder in Chicago has rarely exceeded one in five.
The criminal industrial complex undermines public safety
The system driving Chicago’s crime crisis is not just broken — it is profitable. A growing network of lawyers, advocates, researchers, consultants, and consent decree monitors has transformed criminal justice reform into a lucrative business enterprise — the Criminal Industrial Complex. Their financial interests lie in treating criminals as victims and police as offenders.
Universities in Chicago, Loyola for example, reap millions of dollars in contracts to justify pre-trial release programs. The city spends more on Consent Decree consultants than on police officers patrolling the CTA. The law firm overseeing the Consent Decree has billed the city over $19 million — 35 percent more than originally projected. The biggest payday, however, comes from the lawsuits filed against Chicago. A single law firm pocketed $42 million of $112 million in settlements in 2022 alone.
Not only do the firms bringing these cases against the city become enriched, but so do the law firms hired to defend the suits. These lawsuits rarely go to trial. They never countersue. They generally settle and move on to the next case. Since 2000, the city has paid nearly $700 million to settle 300 cases in which litigants claimed they had been framed by Chicago Police. A staggering $138 million in settlement payouts went to plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The Preckwinkle has been the political driving force behind making the city a sanctuary for criminals
Cook County Board President and County Democratic Party boss Toni Preckwinkle has been a driving force in effectively creating a system that gives sanctuary to criminals. While Preckwinkle maintains a quiet, public profile, she is the booming voice behind the scenes advancing policies and supporting candidates that are dramatically reducing incarceration and effectively defunding the police, with no concerns for the consequences to public safety.
Under Preckwinkle’s four terms leading the Cook County Board, she has facilitated the rise of a string of like-minded elected officials, including former State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, Sheriff Tom Dart, and Mayor Brandon Johnson. While Preckwinkle fell short in getting her hand-picked choice to succeed Kim Foxx, she was successful in ousting long time Democrat and the most prominent Latino in county office, Iris Martinez. Ms. Martinez’s great offense against Preckwinkle was to reorganize the Cook County Clerk’s office to bring transparency to her the pre-trial release program.
As Ms. Martinez learned, Preckwinkle’s golden rule for those who want to be retained or endorsed by the Democratic Party is to use any method available to not detain criminals. Keeping the jail population low is imperative to Preckwinkle, as she and Dart have demolished multiple buildings within the Cook County Jail’s compound and reduced the jail population by half compared to a few years ago to help balance her budget.
In another example of her efforts to all but abolish incarceration, Preckwinkle has continued her support for the County’s disastrous Electronic Monitoring Program, despite clear evidence that it’s contributing to more violent crime. The recent murders of Officer Enrique Martinez and the murder of Lacramioara Beldie, a victim of domestic violence, who was stabbed to death by her abuser while wearing a GPS band, are only two examples of just the latest scandals attached to Preckwinkle’s support for criminal justice reform.
In response to the Sheriff's Office determination to end the EM program, Preckwinkle orchestrated the transfer of the program to the Chief Judge, who by Judge Timothy Evans’ admission, has no capacity to monitor.
The greatest victims of Chicago’s crime wave are the city’s black residents
Escalating black-on-black crime is terrorizing neighborhoods and destroying inner-city communities. This plague of crime is driving what remains of the black middle class out of Chicago. Since 2000, the city has lost 266,188 black residents — one of the largest demographic shifts in the nation. Despite this devastation, activist groups and political leaders continue to ignore the epidemic of black-on-black violence — choosing instead to defend policies that return violent offenders back to the streets to terrorize law abiding residents in high-crime neighborhoods.
As SAFE-T Act supporters like Toni Preckwinkle, Judge Evans, and Mayor Johnson double down on claiming the opponents of pre-trial release were motivated by race, the fact remains that the victims of violent crime in Chicago are overwhelmingly people of color. Blacks constitute almost 80 percent of all murders. Black women have been particularly victimized as they constitute 30 percent of all the violent crime victims in the city. If you are a black girl 18 years and younger, you are 14 times more likely to be a victim of violent crime than if you are white.
It is time for a public safety consent decree
The election of Judge Eileen O'Neill Burke, a respected jurist, over Preckwinkle’s endorsed candidate for Cook County States Attorney, sent shockwaves through the ecosystem of lawyers, professors and activists who make their fortunes off Preckwinkle’s criminal friendly government. However, with Preckwinkle effectively controlling Burke’s budget as well as the funding for the Sheriff’s Office and Chief Judge, Burke is going face major obstacles in her efforts to restore balance.
The criminal justice system in Cook County is a multibillion-dollar enterprise — involving city, county, and state agencies. Yet only the police are under a federal consent decree — measured by the number of police shootings, complaints, and public trust, without any regard for how these policies are fueling crime. It is time to secure a systemwide, public safety consent decree — one that protects victims, restores the rule of law, and guarantees every Cook County resident the right to be safe.
This consent decree must cover not just the police, but the entire criminal justice system — including the State’s Attorney’s Office, Sheriff’s Office, courts, and Clerk of the Court — with an independent monitor to ensure every agency is held accountable. Without a systemwide intervention, the Criminal Industrial Complex will continue to profit — while Chicago will remain a sanctuary city for criminals with its residents left to endure the consequences.
If you want to know why crime is up, you need to understand why it went down so dramatically from the high-crime generation of the 1970s into the 1990s. A sufficient number of police on the street once ensured local “police beat” integrity so 911 calls could be answered in real time. Prosecutors and police recognized that crime rates are driven by expectations about the rule of law, acting against quality-of-life crimes to signal that the community’s laws would be enforced. Dangerous and habitual felons were kept off the streets through pre-trial detention and the imposing of sentences commensurate to the crime.
The people of Chicago deserve a justice system that protects their lives, their families, and their neighborhoods — not one that enriches the powerful at their expense.
