Violent crime and theft continued virtually unabated in 2024
As 2024 ends, Mayor Brandon Johnson is trumpeting the city’s decline in murders and falsely claiming record homicide clearance rates as he tries to gull the public into believing that great strides have been made on the public safety front. Nevertheless, accurate statistics tell a far different story. The fact remains that the violent crime pandemic is not abating and the policies of degrading police strength, penalizing proactive policing, pre-trial release, and the failure to protect witnesses and victims are debilitating factors.
Meanwhile, there has been a concerted effort by political leaders and criminal justice reform advocates to deliberately deceive the public on the real impact of their reforms by withholding data or slow releasing it, such as SAFE-T Act data. They contract with researchers to deliberately misrepresent the data or outright lie, while supporters trumpet flawed reports, using false findings to attack opponents. A close look at the facts reveals the level of deception. Consider the following:
Chicago remains the murder capital of the nation
Let’s be clear, the downward trend in murders reported (7.3%) is less than the national trend (11.6%), as Chicago once again led the nation with 609 murders. Based on research from AH Datalytics, Chicago is tied for the second-lowest percentage drop in homicides in the country among cities with a population greater than 250,000.
Chicago again led the country in school age youth, 17 years and younger, shot (260) and killed (57), and mass shootings (109). A city that suffers recurring mass shootings, if Chicago was a state, it would rank 2nd to California for mass shooting incidents.
The crime pandemic persists, yet is significantly underreported
Violent crime in Chicago in 2024 was almost 40 percent higher than in 2019, when it had 1,700 more cops. The increase is much greater because of underreporting as police shortages have led to half of all “high priority” 911 calls having no car available to respond. This compares unfavorably to 19 percent of calls not responded to in 2019.
Meanwhile, elimination of ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology by Mayor Johnson significantly impaired the understaffed CPD’s ability to respond quickly to gun shootings. CWB Chicago reports the number of gunshot victims discovered in districts previously covered by ShotSpotter for which there was no 911 call at 25.
Domestic violence is escalating
Last year, domestic shootings rose 19 percent as violent crimes and sexual assaults have skyrocketed. The Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports a 110 percent spike in domestic violence related deaths last year.
According to the Chicago Violence Reduction Dashboard, data from 2023 shows there were 13,969 female victims of violent crime, a 26 percent increase from 2020. A separate analysis of Chicago Police crime data crime conducted by CBS News Chicago found that 30 percent were black women.
Burglaries and robberies are booming and are rapidly becoming the norm in Chicago
Chicago experienced a seemingly endless series of nighttime burglaries of businesses in 2024, as armed and often well-organized crime sprees have become commonplace as no area of the city seems immune. CPD regularly issued community alerts about various burglary teams last year, but very few arrests have been made as robberies of small retailers went up 32 percent, restaurant burglaries 18 percent, and armed robberies of tavern and liquor stores a staggering 24 percent.
The ability of police to effectively respond has been significantly impaired.
The combination of the dramatic reduction in police strength, the Consent Decree and the SAFE-T Act, and the continuous criticism and often demonization of police has significantly impacted proactive policing and contributed to plummeting arrest rates. Annual arrest rates have fallen to less than six percent.
Meanwhile, Consent Decree monitors continue to ignore how restrictions on proactive policing may be contributing to the rise in crime and the dramatic increase in violence against officers. Since 2020, Chicago law enforcement personnel have been targeted by criminal gunfire 330 times, and officers have been wounded or killed 38 times, which is four to five times the average before 2019.
The number violent crimes being committed by criminals on pre-trial bail is climbing
CWB Chicago reports that since 2020, 20 percent of those arrested for violent felonies were on pre-trial release. This includes nearly 400 suspects arrested for murder or attempted murder. With CPD having made arrests in only one-third of murder and less than six percent of attempted murder cases since 2020, the number of murders and attempted murders by those released while awaiting trial for other felonies is many times higher.
The County Sheriff’s Electronic Monitoring (EM) is a disaster
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office’s Electronic Monitoring program has become a punch line. A 30-year-old program Sheriff Tom Dart is frantically trying to unload on the courts, the EM program has permitted defendants charged with murder, rape, gun crimes, and criminal sexual assault of children to sit at home for years, and allowed defendants to acquire “good time credit,” which cuts their sentences in half.
Since 2016, the number of defendants on the Sheriff’s EM program with murder charges has escalated 619 percent and those defendants charged with armed violence 333 percent.
There is little effort to protect witnesses and victims
The SAFE-T Act that promised support for witness and victim protection hasn’t materialized. There has also been no effort by lawmakers to amend the law to increase penalties for those who threaten or even contact witnesses and victims while on pre-trial relief.
According to a CBS Data Team analysis of Cook County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) data, only about 19,000 (25 percent) of the over 77,000 “Orders of Protection” were served by the CCSO between 2021-2023. This leaves thousands of domestic violence victims vulnerable to further abuse, spiking the number of domestic violence incidents, including murders.
Three out of every four pre-trial release offenders skip their court dates
Pre-trial release supporters claim 88 percent of offenders have not been issued a warrant for a failure to appear while on pretrial release. A fabricated number, under the current system, judges must notify defendants who miss court dates by post card mail before issuing a bench warrant. Those offenders are considered in compliance with their scheduled court dates by the Cook County Chief Judge, which they of course are not.
Former Cook County Clerk of the Court Iris Martinez reported almost 67,000, or nearly 75 percent of defendants missed their court date, for which she was viciously attacked by Cook County Board President Tony Preckwinkle and Chief Judge Tim Evans.
Cook county government leaders are void of real transparency and any accountability
Despite these disturbing statistics, the Chief Judge of Cook County and the Illinois court system hide behind the laws that exempt them from the Freedom of Information Act, making the system impervious to public transparency. This allows for constant misrepresentation by preferred research entities who make millions issuing reports that masquerade as objective research. Meanwhile, Preckwinkle and her supporters gaslight and collectively target anyone who provides accurate information to the public. The Cook County Democratic Party’s failure to endorse a lifelong Democrat and ranking Latino office holder in Cook County for reelection was a direct consequence of her efforts to bring transparency to the impact of the Safe-T Act.
Chicago’s black residents suffer the most from violent crime
Make no mistake as to who is impacted by the degradation of the police and the failure to keep violent offenders off the street. In Chicago, blacks comprise 32 percent of the city’s total population, yet over 75 percent of the murder and attempted murder victims and over 80 percent of the assailants are black.
Meanwhile, black women accounted for 30 percent of all crime victims in 2022. Black women and girls under 18 suffer most, with 14 black girls attacked and injured for every one white girl.
In conclusion
It’s no surprise why the crime pandemic continues unabated. With the decline in police strength dramatically reducing police response times and arrests, pre-trial release returning the majority of violent criminals to the street, many who go on a commit violent crimes while awaiting trial for previous crimes, and the failure to enforce orders of protection, means each day over 90 percent of those who committed violent offenses are walking the streets of Chicago. Meanwhile, Cook County leaders withhold or manipulate data while gaslighting any critics.
Public safety is a human right constituting the government's primary responsibility to its citizens. In Cook County, however, that basic right is being denied by the “Criminal Industrial Complex” of special interest groups that have transformed criminal justice reform into a lucrative enterprise. They are lawyers, advocates, researchers, consultants, and Consent Decree monitors that have a financial interest in maintaining these so called “reforms”, despite the damage being done to the community, particularly the black community that they purport to be advocating for.
The criminal justice system is a multifaceted and multibillion-dollar enterprise, and city, county, and state agencies are all involved. Yet only the police are under a federal consent decree that measures success by the number of police shootings and complaints and the public’s confidence in the Chicago Police Department. To the detriment of Chicago residents, the Consent Decree disregards the impact it is having on crime altogether. It is time to secure a system-wide Public Safety Consent Decree that keeps our government from doing things that threaten lives, property, and commerce.
Such a decree would span the city, county, and state agencies to make the criminal justice system focus on protecting victims, enshrining the rights of all Cook County residents to be safe, and ensuring that taxpayers are funding an honest, collaborative government. Agencies subject to the decree should include the Sheriff, Cook County courts, and Clerk of the Court. Public safety is a human right and government's primary responsibility. In Chicago, that human right is being denied for too many.
