By: Matt Rosenberg
Reported major crimes are up 55 percent in Chicago through Sunday February 19, versus the same seven-week stretch of 2022. That comes after a full year in 2022 when major crimes were up 41 percent from 2021 (see appendix for full data).
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s reelection campaign claimed in a recent TV ad that “on crime, she’s got a plan”, and that “she’s put more police on the streets.” But there are actually 1,400 fewer cops assigned to district-level patrol duty than at her term’s start.
And as the latest evidence shows, crime’s not down. It’s up. Way up. Any useful plan has to first stop the bleeding in the short-term – and then address long-term violence prevention.
The 55 percent jump in major crimes to date this year includes even sharper climbs in motor vehicle thefts. They’re up 149 percent from last year’s start.
And keep in mind car thefts had already rocketed 102 percent higher in 2022 compared to 2021. There were a stunning 21,425 vehicle thefts in Chicago last year compared to 10,590 the year before. Now we’re running ahead of last year’s pace.
It raises the question: Is Lightfoot’s plan to reduce crime a paper tiger?
There’s more bad news from the year-to-date figures released Tuesday.
Thefts are up 33 percent over last year, criminal sexual assault 18 percent, robbery 19 percent, aggravated battery 15 percent, and burglary 10 percent.
Murder is down 17 percent so far this year versus last year but still up 61 percent versus the comparable stretch of 2019, the last year before George Floyd and Covid. To date this year there’ve been 66 murders in 2023 versus 80 in 2022 and 41 in 2019.
Shooting incidents are down 4 percent this year but up 53 percent versus 2019.
Some of the city’s neighborhoods are feeling Chicago’s ongoing crime wave especially hard.
Perhaps no part of Chicago is more of a bellwether of crime endured by minority communities than the huge 4th Police District on the Southeast Side – where reported major crimes are up 79 percent so far this year.
The 4th runs from 75th Street to the city’s southern border past 134th, and east from Stony Island Avenue and the Bishop Ford Expressway to the Indiana state line. It includes part of South Shore, plus South Chicago, Calumet Heights, Eastside, Jeffrey Manor, South Deering and Hegewisch.
Once a vibrant manufacturing hub and home to the now-shuttered U.S. Steel South Works, the 4th remains riven with major violent crimes and property crimes in 2023.
Shooting incidents in the 4th are up 130 percent this year so far and criminal sexual assaults are up 133 percent.
Robberies have climbed 62 percent and motor vehicle thefts 190 percent. There’ve been 7 murders so far this year in the 4th versus 2 in the same stretch last year.
Chicago is still waiting for the benefits of a crime “plan” to take effect.
How much longer will the city have to wait for real relief?
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Unwed births, illiterate children and black-on-black crime: What Chicago’s mayoral candidates ignore
- No, Mayor Lightfoot hasn’t put more cops on the streets. Beat cops are down 19% since she took office.
- Chicago 2022 arrest rates collapse to just 5%
- Five reasons why the latest spin on Chicago’s murder problem is dead wrong
- New CPS data: Mayor Lightfoot, Chicago Teachers Union continue to keep dozens of empty, failing schools open
- Lightfoot ad calls crime critics “haters,” but the real “haters” are the killers, robbers and carjackers that plagued Chicago in 2022 – Wirepoints
Appendix
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about the lies that will be told about Chicago and Illinois as the DNC begins, the fact that Chicago continues to lead the nation in homicides, the potential for a violent Democratic National Convention, the consequences of Illinois’ high unemployment rate, and more.
Ted joined The Shaun Thompson Show to talk about the impossible burden of Illinois property taxes, why residents’ property values are so low, the billions in wasted money the federal government doled out during covid, why Chicago’s corporate elite are going along with the policies wreaking the city, and more.
Nobody should hope for the day that our differences become so severe that even a soft separation of some sort becomes policy in some states. Just know that the day may be closer than you think.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about CTU President Stacy Davis-Gates blaming Chicago students’ dismal test scores on “white-supremacy,” what it will take for school choice to win in Illinois, the lies people will hear from the DNC about the success of Illinois’ progressive policies, the decline of Illinois universities, and more.
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 8/4/2024.
Statistical note: the only reason we are as low as 697 is because expressway shootings are excluded from city statistics, due to their technically being under state police jurisdiction. Heyjackass includes them, which pushes 2022’s homicide total up to 737.
Won’t be long until Chicago decides how much it loves thugs and gangbangers. At this point, scooby-doo may do a better job than the current crop vying for the job.
“””—there are actually 1,400 fewer cops assigned to district-level patrol duty than at her term’s start.—“””
1400 less people to take crime reports & Viola! Less crime…
After the election no more need for meetings at the Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge
Algonquin J Calhoun can take a vacation
Can I have a MKSL toatbag for virtue signaling? All the self righteous cowards are openly mouthing off. There’s blood in the water. Everybody is grabbing for a hand full of self respect. Youlll never mask the bouquet of being a proud participant in the destruction of the city.
I remember the corporate media telling its few remaining customers that Biden had a plan to fix the economy. By ‘fix’, they meant ‘destroy’, but journalism is dead Chicago and nationwide.
Lori and Foxx have done the same for Chicago. It’s wrecked and wracked by the thug element.
This should not be a surprise. The CPS system only teaches how to be a “Criminal”. Teachers give the students no job skills, they do not have them themselves. Cops do not enforce the laws, only make out reports. The whole Chitty is in a complete freefall, it is a race to the bottom.
Unlikely measurable, but I wonder how many suburbanites over the last couple years have forgone trips into the city or completely written it off for fear of a carjacking or theft. Further, with Michigan Avenue windows papered over, the flashing blue lights of police vehicles parked in its medians, and unannounced drifting at major intersections, an ominous message is conveyed: stay away.
Chicago is a shell of its former glorious self. Well done, Lightfoot. May you be fired next week.
This suburbanite hasn’t been to Chicago in 5 years. I don’t like that feeling when you know someone is following you about to put a gun barrel against your kidney.
But yet when you go out of town and mention the suburb name that you did not mention. You have to say for instance; I’m from Westchester Il. A suburb of Chicago for anybody to approximate where you are, you satelite
When a new candidate, who hasn’t held the office, and hasn’t been involved and responsible for its day to day operations says “on crime, I have a plan”, you might give them the benefit of the doubt and ask him or her to elaborate. But Lightfoot has been in charge of that for awhile now, and under her tenure crime has increased significantly. So for her to say “on crime, I have a plan”, well, we already know what THAT plan is, having watched it be implemented and “bear fruit”. Vote for Lori Lightfoot? C’mon Chicagoans, you can’t be that… Read more »
by the way, where’s kim? she sure seems to be laying low, has anyone heard from her in months?
This is why Lori will be unemployed shortly. Bough putting hope into any of the others seems foolish.
Fate de Compli I can’t help but recall the halcyon days of Chicago as a kid. I could hardly pass an El Stop without seeing a DeMars Grill sign from the El platform, the result of Grandpa facilitating the opening of a new neighborhood restaurant and providing a recent immigrant family from Jewish Europe a place where the entire family could work and feed their families. Indeed, he stayed on the Northside, from Howard all the way south to the loop and Michigan Avenue. The labor pools, normally toothless hillbillies from the south and a fair amount of negroes, which… Read more »
Crime is up and happening all over the country. I know why: “Transition!”””
The Chitty of Chicago is not a safe place to raise a family. People are fleeing at every opportunity. The Chitty only has money for overly generous pensions. They are broke and cannot afford any services of any kind. The chickens have come to roost. Crime today will look low compared to what the future holds.
It’s amazing how people on the Left believe their own lies. These people are psychopaths.
Commies in control.
Motor vehicle thefts? 21,000? Astounding. The entire Commonwealth of Virginia, with three times the population, has 10,000 thefts a year. This isn’t just a statistic – people begin to fear traveling. I don’t know how Lightfoot defends this.