By: Matt Rosenberg
When it comes to crime in Illinois, Chicago tends to suck the oxygen right out of the room. But other Illinois cities are having their own troubles. One such place is Rockford, which with a population of 148,655, is the fifth largest city in the state. Using 2019 as a baseline, the year-to-year and year-to-date data accents the need for Rockford to get a handle on violent crime and car thefts in what was already America’s 17th most violent city.
We looked at data from the Rockford Police Department covering 2019 through 2021, and the first two months of this year versus the same stretch in 2021, to get a handle on growth in violent crime, aggravated assaults, shots fired, and motor vehicle theft. We also tracked overall property crimes, and murders and murder case closure rates. The takeaway: things aren’t looking good in Rockford. Not at all.
A number of major crime indicators in Rockford are notably higher in 2021 than in 2019, before nationwide unrest was unleashed after George Floyd’s death.
Reported violent crime incidents rose in Rockford by 26 percent in 2021 vs. 2019. Aggravated assaults were up 41 percent, murders 33 percent, and motor vehicle thefts 12 percent.
There are a lot more bullets flying in Rockford, too. Total reported shots fired are not an often-used metric. When they hit a human target they become homicides or shootings. But gunfire is almost always noticed and perceived by residents as one telling indicator of public safety. They were up 70 percent between 2019 and 2021.
Homicides in Rockford rose from 18 in 2019 to 24 in 2021. The homicide clearance rate, or percentage of homicides which police solved and made arrests for, dropped from 72 percent in 2019 to 38 percent in 2021.
2022 doesn’t bode well
Crime indicators in the first two months of this year versus an already-ugly 2021 show that things are only getting worse for Rockford.
In January and February of 2022, motor vehicle thefts were up a striking 94 percent from the same period in 2021, a near-doubling of volume. Shots fired were up 48 percent and reported violent crime incidents were 16 percent. Aggravated assaults were 14 percent higher.
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If there’s one big piece of good news in Rockford, according to the city’s RockStat crime reports, it’s that property crimes are down 23 percent from 2019 through 2021. The good news continued In the first two months of 2022; property crime is down 16 percent versus the same time in 2021.
Meanwhile, the City of Rockford and prosecutors in Winnebago County have been trying to block the increase in crimes. Their recent initiatives include a new county gun court and a city-driven fix-up and services outreach program in neighborhoods most prone to violent crime.
The gun court is supposed to funnel to a designated courtroom and speed up the disposition of felony cases for unlawful possession of a firearm. A related aim is to make punishments in such cases more consistent for those convicted. Cases involving shootings and homicides with guns will still go to regular felony courtrooms.
The neighborhood initiative will aim to help six communities in Rockford with home repairs, fixes to streetlights and other light infrastructure, and connect residents with community service providers. The program is partly based on the “Broken Windows” crime deterrence theory that local streets and neighborhoods in good repair send a message of diligence and attention, that in turn can help discourage crime.
These efforts are part of a good start at attacking crime in Rockford anew, but a more robust approach is needed to restore safety to the city’s streets and neighborhoods. And it must include reversing key provisions of a harmful state criminal justice reform law.
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Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Rockford, Peoria, Decatur, Springfield, Champaign, Danville – one after the other (these are just the cities I’m personally familiar with) – Illinois municipalities plagued by crime, typically black on black crime (which it’s not “proper” to talk about), that’s excused in the courts and legacy media as white racism and lack of “wokeness.” Exacerbated by police departments that are understaffed with burned out and dispirited officers, and courts that are backlogged and overwhelmed, because taxpayers can’t afford the wages and benefits paid to the “too few” police that they do have, much less additional staff. I wish everyone could, as… Read more »
Trenchant analysis. Could you send me a confidential email at matt@wirepoints.org please. I’d like to chat further, if you’re amendable.
Rockford has such potential, but it’s been abandoned to globalism. I can tell it used to be so wealthy, prosperous. But now, so much empty, abandoned manufacturing buildings everywhere. It could be gentrified to a really cool medium sized town in northern IL. It’s got a downtown, and a river, and a cool landscape, a massive state park just north of town. There’s hundreds of prosperous 100k+ population towns all throughout the country. But IL is such a dump no one will make an investment to do a revitalization of small town america in northern IL.
Rockford had dysfunction even in the 70’s. I was on a national powerhouse athletics team in the 70’s and the only team that was even marginally competitive in the state to us was Rockford East. Their top competitor went on to a fine career at Iowa State, a friend to this day. So what did the Rockford school district do? They cancelled all sports due to finances! The union “won”. So much for being for the students.
Do you remember when Rockford had On The Waterfront? A multi day event with every type of band/music playing venues on both sides of the river. From Cheap Trick to Alice Cooper to Ted Nugent as headliners to gospel/jazz/pop/local bands like Moonlight Jazz playing all over downtown. Food galore and up to 200K attendees over the course of the weekend. No murders or crime/riots other than people trying to sneak into the festival. People came from all over the area. Good time for all. No more. Costs too much or something. Those were the days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Waterfront_(festival)
Sinnissippi Park summer concert series is amazing. Free, well attended, well behaved crowd but very few of the usual suspects.
You used the “G” word. And I’m all for it. A rising tide can lift the boats of all those who’ve plugged the holes in their vessel’s bottom.
One word – unions. Where there’s unions there is decay. Make IL right to work and it would bounce back.
I see a lot of blah,blah,blah here,but no one says it like it is-blacks commit most of the crimes,child molesters run the schools,now what!!??
I would love to know who are the knuckle draggers that downvoted you. Why do they hate truth?
i know where the three down votes came from,jb,lightfoot and preckwinkle
Again I live near Rockford out in a more rural area and catch the local news. Almost everyday the first two or three stories involve blacks regarding shootings, armed robberies, violent assaults etc. Its no secret about what ethnicity is the cause of most violent crime in the area. Just turn on the local news.
From Wikipedia. Also, the government has been transferring illegals to the city. Hispanic and Mixed are probably understated.
Race / Ethnicity Pop 2010[53]Pop 2020[54 ] % 2010 % 2020
White alone (NH) 89,349 72,440 58.45% 48.73%
Black or African American alone (NH)30,695 33,466 20.08% 22.51%
Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)308 308 0.20% 0.21%
Asian alone (NH) 4,390 5,145 2.87% 3.46%
Pacific Islander alone (NH) 36 30 0.02% 0.02%
Some Other Race alone (NH) 218 715 0.14% 0.48%
Mixed Race/Multi-Racial (NH) 3,790 6,968 2.48% 4.69%
Hispanic or Latino (anyrace) 24,085 29,583 15.76% 19.90%
Total 152,871 148,655 100.00% 100.00%
Rockford has been for sometime now a dirty little secret.
I lived in an area near there for a short while.
While Rockford has a lot to offer shopping wise and restaurants it’s crime problems have been soaring for years.
It’s sad to see this as it’s a quant farm town.
The last time I was there I had to redirect my travel as there was a drive by shooting. To say it was the last time I went would be an understatement.
Thanks for bringing attention to this area.
Thanks, Lin. We want to begin looking more closely at crime in Illinois beyond Chicago. One initial question that’s interesting is how many of the state’s largest cities even have useful crime data reports and portals online? Far from all 20 of the state’s 20 biggest, I can tell you that already. Rockford at least does provide useful and reasonably up-to-date crime data.
I’d be interested in the demographics of the victims, perpetrators, and neighborhoods to be serviced by the initiative.
Is there any commonality with Chicago’s data on demographics and rundown neighborhoods?
I live near Rockford and the answer to your question is “the usual suspects”. Get it?
White supremacists? That’s who my government keeps telling me is the most violent and most likely to commit crime.
lol,thats what i keep saying on here,but,every crime i see on tv is commited by our african american friends,oh,theyre probably white supremacists wearing black face,jesus christ,what a bunch of lying,ignorant political dopes
Crime is an equal opportunity endeavor. Some people with different color skin may have statistically higher crime rates – that is a fact – but that is not really relevant to the fact that criminals, regardless of the color of their skin, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Crime has become a skin color issue to some people, especially since Democrats push the systemic discrimination lie, but as I said above, crime occurs by all people with all color skin. There’s dirtbag degenerates of all races.
Yes, let’s judge the thugs by the content of their crime and not the color of their skin.
im not judging anyone,im pointing out the fact of who commits most of the crime
I agree. We can’t let the left define the arguments on crime. Which is when they bring race into everything. The moment the right acknowledges that statistically, blacks have higher rates of some crime than other races, it opens the door to the left’s “well that’s because of systemtic racism, and the answer is CRT, affirmative action, reverse discrimination etc”. Those are terrible social policies based upon race and do little to reduce crime. Policing, arrests, convictions, they reduce crimes because those most likely to commit crimes are locked up. It doesn’t matter the color of one’s skin. A criminal… Read more »
yep!
Matt, do you think there’s a chance that the crime, the lawlessness, the turnstile of the courts, and the utter disregard for victims and public safety by elected officials will result in turnover in State, City, County, offices? I mean, with the financial mismanagement and the crime, it can’t be good for Pritzker and LL. Kim Fox’s career should by DOA, shouldn’t it? Or, are people allowing themselves to be conned by the largess of the Covid cash and the resultant hangover? Covid, and the money doled out by the feds May have actually put off the reckoning for the… Read more »
Rob, we’re non-partisan here as you know and make no endorsements. But voters everywhere always need to ask themselves if they’re better off than they were two or four years ago. The question then is how far do they go if the answer is no.
So called leaders in Rockford are more concern about developing the river district than solving real problems that effect there voters everyday. Throwing Money at a issue does nothing. Getting at the root of a problem is difficult and messy. Political leaders do not like messy issues
I believe 3 shot dead in the last week. Here’s some info.
https://www.wrex.com/news/crime/
Freddy, thanks for sharing that. Good source for Rockford crime news updates.
Matt-Also check out 13 investigates. Just click on icon and scroll or look up item like failing students still get promoted. Some stories on youth and guns.
Will dig into that source. I note you mention failing students and by implication, failing schools. Stay tuned, on that count.
That website had mug shots of degenerates of all colors, creeds and races. Crime does not discriminate based upon race.
The local news used to air a segment about Rockfords most wanted. It was almost entirely black suspects. Apparently that rubbed some people the wrong way now it’s mostly whites wanted for things like, didnt pay a parking ticket, didnt leave a good tip at a restaurant, walked across the street when the sign flashed dont walk etc.